Cannes 2023: 9 shocking films likely to cause controversy this year

Cannes 2023: 9 shocking films likely to cause controversy this year

Cannes 2023 is (almost) over! As every year, the South of France becomes the capital of cinema, where the participants of the festival live to the rhythm of the films. They will be a hundred to reveal themselves during this 76th edition and if some are already talking about them for their casting and/or the general public (Indiana Jones 5, Pixar Elemental, Flower Moon Assassins. .), others could play the card of shock and controversy in the discussions .

And this from the opening given this year by Jeanne du Barry de Maïwenn, in which the actor and director responds to Johnny Depp. From the competition to the parallel sections via the HBO series, here’s a little spotlight on these nine pieces you’re likely to spot on the Croisette.

Jeanne du Barry

Although the general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, Thierry Fremaux, disputed it, the presence of the film Jeanne du Barry in the selection is a choice that caused great controversy when it was announced. Reason ? The presence of Johnny Depp in the casting of the historical drama Maven. The American actor’s notoriety took the lead during the long legal battle he faced with his ex-girlfriend Amber Heard over acts of domestic violence.

This did not prevent Maven from casting him for the role of King Louis XV, for which he returned to studying French. The shoot was stormy between the two actors who had trouble agreeing on a vision for the film. Maven directs but also plays Jeanne du Barry, the daughter of a cultured and pleasure-loving people who becomes the King’s favourite. His arrival at Versailles, regardless of propriety and etiquette, will scandalize the court. If the film wants to be sultry, it will be the first potential controversy of the festival since its opening.

an idol

Following the box office of Euphoria series as recognized and rejected, Sam Levinson offers a sultry new fic called The Idol. Collaborating with singer The Weeknd and Reza Fahim, Barry Levinson’s son wants to immerse us in the hell of Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), a depressed pop star hoping to make a comeback. Will her romance lead to Tedros (The Weeknd), a nightclub owner with a troubled past?

The first images from The Idol promise a series of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll that should grab the attention of festival-goers hungry for thrills and scandals. Especially since the controversy is also going on behind the scenes, as it was revealed by the investigation published Rolling Stone that the production of the series was a mess. After controversy between director Amy Semitz’s departure, script rewrites and Sam Levinson’s critical behavior, The Idol will be at the center of talk at Cannes.

area of ​​interest

It took ten years for Jonathan Glazer to return with a new feature film, Zone of Interest, which won first choice in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The British filmmaker, who started his career by directing commercials and music videos (Radiohead, Massive Attack), gradually moved to experimental fiction, offering films as strange and fascinating as Sexual Beast, Birth or the most famous Under the Scarlet Skin. Johansson.

This time, Jonathan Glazer offers us a wonderful historical drama during the Second World War. But “Zone of Interest” will have something to put off even the most wary of souls as it tells the complicated love story of a Nazi officer and a capo’s wife. The latter tries to avoid the genocidal horror, but the suspicion of his wife monopolizes his mind. The synopsis leaves room for the imagination, but knowing Jonathan Glazer’s world, we can only expect surprises and perhaps a strong reaction from moviegoers.

return

Two years after La Fracture, left empty-handed while brilliantly taking the pulse of France’s yellow vests, Catherine Corsin offers herself a third entry in the Cannes competition. Already the busiest yet to return, his fifteenth feature film was presented at the Grand Théâtre Lumiere. Although Thierry Frémaux announced to the filmmaker its presence in the Queen category, the feature film was not in the selection published in mid-April.

The reason: the board of directors of Cannes had to study “state of affairs”, because the facts of harassment are alleged against the director and two members of the team. As well as possible stretching “heavy” Legislation for the protection of underage actors, in the context of a masturbation scene filmed by a then 15-and-a-half-year-old actor, which the Committee for the Protection of Children was unable to review. .

Deprived of CNC assistance, which he was asked to return for these reasons, rejected by a major stakeholder, Le Retour was eventually added to the competition. What prompted the reaction of the 50/50 Collective and the Syndicate of Audiovisual and Motion Picture Industry Professionals (SPIAC) speaking out “An insult to all the artistic and technical teams involved in the making of the films and the impact of our cinematography.”

At the same time, producer Mark Missioner calls for a boycott of the film, the presentation and press conference of which promises to be a storm, and Catherine Corsini will try to defend herself from the facts of which she is accused. A comeback that should therefore not go unnoticed, from the second day of Cannes 2023.

last summer

Ten years after her last film, The Abuse of Weakness, Catherine Braille returns to the stage and promises to liven up the Official Competition of the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. The director, screenwriter and novelist became famous for feature films dealing with the sexual and emotional passions of women. If a few of them have caused controversy, we have to talk about his new film, Last Summer, on the Croisette.

It’s a remake of Queen of Hearts, a Danish film by May El-Touch that almost represented Denmark at the Oscars in 2020. In this version of Breillat, Leah Drucker plays a famous lawyer who has an affair at the age of 17. – The elderly stepmother played by Samuel Kircher. Last summer could create a scandal. The same as 36 Fillets, his third film about a 14-year-old girl seduced by a forty-year-old man in 1988? Answered on May 25.

How to have sex

What if the sulphurous film of this edition of Cannes was at Un Certain Regard? British Molly Manning Walker’s first feature How to Have Sex announces a program from its title that could be suitable for Les Beaux gosses or American Pie. Except that schoolboy humor shouldn’t be announced in this drama “Enriched, nuanced and painfully honest.”

It’s about three friends who, as soon as they graduate from high school, take their first vacation with their friends to an ultra-crowded Mediterranean resort, where they plan chain parties, booze and sleepless nights surrounded by English roommates. They met on arrival.. The trip that young Tara will enjoy goes from one excess to another, to the point of vertigo. One that could capture the audience caught between euphoria and discomfort, in an experience that, if it goes all the way, could be one of the shocks of this edition and leave a hangover aftertaste.

Conan

Bertrand Mandico’s cinema leaves no one indifferent, and we cannot blame him. Nothing more than his inventiveness and ability to mix genres, cinematic and sexual. After numerous short films, his transition to film was made with Les Garçons Sauvage, a fantasy film based on the metaphor of transcendence, followed by UItra Pulpe and his participation in UItra Rêve.

A year later, the epic After Blue (Selling Paradise), at the crossroads of Western and SF, his favorite themes will be embodied in Conan. Without Arnold Schwarzenegger, but with Christa Terrett, newcomer to his world Robert E. Because of this feminine retelling of Howard’s fantasy novel, which chronicles its protagonist’s six lives (and deaths) from Hell.

The possibility of what the Quinzaine de Cinéastes website describes as a “Visceral and Instinctive Queer Méliès”, enter the cardboard scenery and a world rich with all kinds of cinematic and fluid references that question, make uncomfortable, fascinate, disgust, challenge… sometimes in the same impulse. There’s no reason Conan can’t be the same barrel and not talk.

Rosalie

That’s why Nadia Tereskevich’s post-Cesarean will go to Cannes. A year after his run with Les Amandiers, which earned him a famous squeeze at the end of the race, the actor will shine on the side of Un Certain Regard. With a look that doesn’t fail to impress, as Rosalie watches the fate of a bearded woman in the 19th century.

The status of a market phenomenon, which the young protagonist of the new feature film by Stéphanie Di Giusto (La Danseuse, on Loïe Fuller, already at Un Certain Regard in 2016), will try to escape in this historical drama, where his secret will be threatened. By marriage with Abel (Benoît Magimel). At a time when questions of the female and male gaze are being scrutinized and contrasted, in Rosalie it will be more of a question. which should be carefully observed.

Feeling that the time to do something has passed

This long title hides a much more direct and comical story than one might imagine. A Feeling That Something’s Time Has Passed is the first feature film expected to cause a stir at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes. Actress, screenwriter, director and editor Joanna Arnow promises festival-goers a daring experience with a BDSM comedy in which she strips naked.

Produced by Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket) among others, this autofiction is a fragmented look at a woman’s life over time with scenes dealing with her sex life, her professional life in a low-level business. but also in his personal life in an explosive Jewish family. He promises!

The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will be held from May 16 to 27, 2023.

Source: Allocine

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