Cannes 2024: Will Donald Trump Flick Make America Great Again

Here we go again! Another award season gone and now we get to start all over again with the Cannes right around the corner. Last year’s festival ended with Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall taking home the Palme d’Or and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest winning the Grand Prix. Both films were nominated for Best Picture at the 96th Oscars with Anatomy of a Fall winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar and The Zone of Interest winning Best International Feature Film and Best Sound. Cannes director Thierry Frémaux says this year’s slate is “a strong indication of what cinema has become, its changes, evolutions and what remains immutable.”

Jeremy Strong has a contender centered on former Presidentt and current 2024 Presidential hopeful Donald Trump. You already know the shenanigans that will ensue when it drops…just saying. At any rate, here are some of the most talked about anticipated titles due to drop when the festival kicks off on May 14 through May 25.

Kinds of Kindness

Straight after the annoncement from 20th Century Studios at CinemaCon, it’s another Yorgos Lanthimos flick and another team-up with Poor Things’ Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe. This time Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, The Favourite’s Joe Alwyn and Hong Chau join his ensemble for a fable following three characters facing some seriously unusual challenges in their lives.

The Apprentice

Ali Abbasi, the Iranian-Danish filmmaker behind the serial-killer drama Holy Spider, is turning his attention to Donald Trump via The Apprentice. It stars Marvel Studios star Sebastian Stan as Trump and Succession’s Jeremy Strong as his ruthless long-time lawyer Roy Cohn. Baby, this one is diving head first into the underbelly of the American empire’ exposing and examining the pact Donald made with Cohn in his earlier years. For those who don’t know, Cohn was one of the many lawyers that presided of over the Communist hearings resulting in hundreds losing their livelihoods in the Hollywood system. Among those accused and effected were Filmmaker Lee Grant and the legendary Lucille Ball.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Another CinamaCon treat was George Miller telling fans about a follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road making it even louder, crazier and more juiced than the first time. History has proven that Cannes loves to show off with big Hollywood blockbusters and they don’t come much bigger than this.

Megalopolis

In 1979, Cannes Francis Ford Coppola was honored with the Palme d’Or for Apocalypse Now – saved it and its director, Coppola from possible disaster. Coppola introducing yet another rumored troubled epic, Megalopolis, after 40 years of labour. Starring Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Laurence Fishburne and Dustin Hoffman, Megalopoliis is a story of political ambition, genius and conflicted love. Based on the recent passing of his wife Eleanor, Coppola may be conflicted enough to skip it all. Only time will tell.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

Here comes a new doc from I Am Not Your Negro filmmaker Raoul Peck has recruited LaKeith Stanfield to narrate the story of pioneering South African photographer Ernest Cole. Cole risked everything to capture Black life under apartheid and this film will explore his art and reportage, as well as, his life in exile in the US, to introduce ‘a pivotal Black artist to a new generation.’