Cannes 2022: Vincent Lacoste, Virginie Efira, Adèle Exarchopoulos at the Directors’ Fortnight

After the official selection, and while waiting for Critics’ Week and Acid, the Directors’ Fortnight unveiled the selection this morning for its 54th edition.

For its 2022 vintage, -the last headed by Paolo Moretti, who will leave his position as General Delegate at the end of the Festival-, the parallel section of the Festival offers itself a very good line-up, mixing names well known to festival-goers (Philippe Faucon , João Pedro Rodrigues, Nicolas Pariser, Alice Winocour, Mia Hansen Love, Léa Mysius among others) and many new filmmakers. Since the Directors’ Fortnight has the primary mission of supporting the first steps of female and male directors, this edition will present the first times of 18 directors (out of 24, three titles being co-directed).

Among the stars expected are Léa Seydoux, Virginie Efira, Vincent Lacoste, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Sandrine Kiberlain, but also Irish actor Paul Mescal, revelation of the Normal People series. Also note the presence of Jessie Buckley (revealed by Wild Rose, and recently in The Lost Daughter) alongside filmmaker Alex Garland, selected for the first time at Cannes, with Eux (Men), in a special screening.

The selection also gives pride of place to female directors, with 11 female directors, including the first production by Annie Ernaux! The author has indeed co-directed a film with her son, David Ernaux-Briot, The Super 8 years.

Director always in the spotlight, with the Golden Coach which will be awarded this year to the American Kelly Reichardt. The filmmaker will also be competing in the Official Selection, with her 8th feature, Showing up.

We will note as often a “strong presence of French cinema“, the most represented country this year. “336 French feature films were received“, indicated Paolo Moretti, general delegate of the Fortnight. Strong presence which “responds to the richness and vitality of French cinema“, he continued.

A final feature film from Asia will be announced shortly, bringing the number of films selected this year to 22. The short films will be communicated next week.

Unveiled this Tuesday, April 19, 2022, discover the official selection of the 54th edition of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs:

Feature films:

• The Flight of Pietro Marcello (opening film)
• Le Parfum vert by Nicolas Pariser (closing film)
• 1976 by Manuela Martelli (1st feature film)
• El Agua by Elena López Riera (1st feature film)
• The Dam (Al-Sadd, السّد, Le Barrage) by Ali Cherri (1st feature film)
• The Super 8 Years by Annie Ernaux & David Ernaux-Briot (1st feature)

Surprise with the announcement of an unexpected first-time director: the novelist Annie Ernaux! For the first time, she signs a feature film, co-directed with her son David Ernaux-Briot, Les Années Super 8, an autobiographical documentary film by the author. “As often in her work, here she gives a universal dimension to a very personal work. We rely here on unique material: their family films, shot in Super 8 between 1976 and 1981, around the images and a new and sublime text, an intimate, social and political story is woven.“, specifies the selection committee of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs. For the record, the author Annie Ernaux has recently been the subject of two film adaptations: Passion simple by Danielle Arbid, and L’Evénement by Audrey Diwan, Lion d gold in Venice in 2021.

5 years after a remarkable first feature film, Ava with Noée Abita and Laure Calamy, selected for Critics’ Week in Cannes, the director and screenwriter Lea Mysius present in Cannes The Five Devils, his second feature film, the start of shooting of which had to be delayed due to the pandemic and confinement. The filmmaker directs Adèle Exarchopoulos there. According to the committee of the Fortnight, it is a “dazzling and mysterious” film, whose “register touches on the fantastic”, with a “Incandescent Adele Exarchopoulos“.

The synopsis is as follows: Vicky, a strange and lonely little girl, has a gift: she can smell and reproduce all the scents of her choice that she collects in carefully labeled jars. She secretly extracted the scent from her mother, Joanne, to whom she has a mad and exclusive, almost sickly love. One day Julia, her father’s sister, bursts into their lives. Vicky embarks on the development of her scent. She is then transported to dark and magical memories where she will discover the secrets of her village, her family and her own existence.

One year after Bergman Island competing in the Official Selection last year, Mia Hansen Love is already back on the Croisette, with A nice morning. The film brings together Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Nicole Garcia and Melvil Poupaud. We follow Sandra, a young mother who raises her daughter alone, who often visits her sick father, Georg. As she embarks with her family on an obstacle course to get him treatment, Sandra meets Clément, a long-lost friend… A film presented by the Directors’ Fortnight selection committee like a “delicate chronicle of the daily life of a young woman rediscovering her taste for life“, with “modesty and elegance on eminently contemporary issues“.

• Owen Kline’s Funny Pages (1st feature)
• Falcon Lake by Charlotte Le Bon (1st feature)

After trying her hand at directing a short film for the Talents Adami operation (Judith Hotel), Charlotte Le Bon is moving on to feature films, very freely adapting the comic strip by Bastien Vivès, A sister (published by Casterman), with the collaboration of François Choquet on the screenplay. The film titled Falcon Lake brings together Joseph Engel (young actor noticed in the films directed by Louis Garrel, The Faithful Man and The Crusade), Arthur Igual, Sarah Montpetit, Monia Chokri and Karine Gonthier Hyndman. “A story of love and ghosts, both tender and cruel“according to the Fortnight.

• Fogo-Fatuo (Will-o’-the-Wisp, Wisp) by João Pedro Rodrigues
• God’s Creatures by Anna Rose Holmer & Saela Davis
• Harkis by Philippe Faucon
• Men (Them) by Alex Garland (Special Screening)

After Ex Machina and Annihilation, Alex Garland returns with Them (Men), film billed as “feverish and visionary“, which brings together Jessie Buckley Rory Kinnear and Paapa Essiedu. This is her first Cannes selection. The pitch: In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, a woman retires alone to the beautiful English countryside to find a place to heal. But someone or something in the surrounding woods seems to attack her… It will become a nightmare for the heroine.

• Pamfir by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk (1st feature film)
• A Male (Un Varon) by Fabian Hernández (1st feature film)
• Revisiting Paris by Alice Winocour

Review the recording of the press conference of the announcement of the 2022 selection: