On Monday, as the renowned film festival nears its halfway point, two films will debut at Cannes: a biopic on Donald Trump and the most recent sinister production from David Cronenberg.
As of now, 11 of the 22 films vying for the coveted Palme d’Or have been viewed. The bold front-runner is “Emilia Perez,” a musical about a drug lord who decides to change his sexual orientation.
The festival, which is regarded as the premier gathering place for the film industry, ends on Saturday with an awards ceremony, presided over by “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig.
However, on Monday, two more noteworthy additions appear.
Directed by Iranian-born Ali Abbasi, “The Apprentice” is a biographical film about Trump’s early years that is sure to cause controversy during an election year in the US.
It features Sebastian Stan, who is most known for portraying Marvel Studios’ Winter Soldier. However, he also received critical acclaim for his role as rocker Tommy Lee in the television series “Pam and Tommy” and won best actor at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
Later, “The Shrouds,” a film by director Cronenberg, who is known for his body-horror masterpieces like “The Fly,” “Crash,” and “Videodrome,” makes a comeback to the Cote d’Azur festival.
Claimed as his most intimate movie to date, it narrates the tale of a bereaved businessman (Vincent Cassell) who creates a device to keep an eye on the deceased while they are buried.
The passing of Cronenberg’s wife of 43 years in 2017 served as some inspiration.
According to the Canadian director, “I don’t really think of art as therapy,” Variety was told. “I believe that grief never goes away. It remains. You can be somewhat detached from it, but while I was producing the film, I didn’t feel any catharsis.”
Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” a tough yet endearing and fanciful story of a young girl in working-class England, was one of the entries that did well with critics during the first week.
The most recent bizarre collaboration between Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos, “Kinds of Kindness,” included a thumb-and-cauliflower dinner scene among other extremely dark comedic moments.
Perhaps the most controversial film to date is “Megalopolis,” a decades-long epic directed by Francis Ford Coppola that some critics have hailed as a deep work of philosophy at the end of life and others have found to be hardly understandable.
