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Cannes 2025: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning; Eddington; Sirât
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning
Eight years after Cannes dipped its toes into VR waters with their presentation of Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s ultra-haptic empathy machine Carne y Arena (2017), the festival’s general delegate Thierry Frémaux continues to promote cinema’s expanding XR toolbox. In addition to bringing back the festival's Immersive Competition for a second year—from what I saw of the press tour held a few hours before the Opening Ceremony, it would be difficult to justify a third—Frémaux also, per an interview with Screen International, trained this year’s festival staff using an AI version of his own voice when he couldn't be present to address them himself. Despite the increased productivity and efficiency this technology no doubt afforded him, he maintains his wariness: “It doesn’t just… Read more
“Anytime I Could Minimize the Use of Verbal Language and Rely on Other Means to Advance the Story, That’s What I Did”: Lloyd Lee Choi on His Cannes-Premiering Lucky Lu
Lucky Lu
There’s something about the high-pressure nature of the migrant experience that can make films about it elicit more anxiety than your average thriller. So it is with Lloyd Lee Choi’s Lucky Lu. Set in New York’s Chinatown—a backdrop captured by DOP Norm Li as a caliginous labyrinth of alleyways and sepulchral rooms—Lee Choi’s feature debut centers on the titular Lu (Chang Chen), a Chinese delivery rider who’s spent years away from his wife and daughter, and now, having drummed up enough cash to secure an apartment for three, readies to welcome them to the city. Title notwithstanding, however, Lu might as well be cursed. A few hours before his family’s arrival, his e-bike is stolen, and the building’s super evicts… Read more
“At the Same Time that We’re Fighting for our Lives, We Are Also Agents of Exploitation, of Domination, of Violence”: Pedro Pinho on his Cannes-Premiering I Only Rest In The Storm
I Only Rest in the Storm
Pedro Pinho’s Cannes-premiering I Only Rest In The Storm follows Sergio, a naive do-gooder who, as the film’s title implies, finds inner peace in places of chaos. In this case it’s the hurly-burly of Guinea-Bissau, where the Portuguese environmental engineer has been hired to produce an impact report that will pave the way for a road-building project to commence. There he meets two charismatic characters, party-loving besties Diara and Guillermhe, the former a native, the latter a Black Brazilian expat. And thus begins a bizarre triangle of love-hate attraction - fueled by a colonialist past, a capitalist present, and an uncertain future for them all. Just prior to the film’s Un Certain Regard debut, Filmmaker reached out to the Portuguese director… Read more
Cannes 2025: Sound of Falling, Two Prosecutors
Lena Urzendowsky in Sound of Falling
It’s always a dangerous business when entertainment journalists and film critics feel the need to wade into political commentary, but the Trumpian shadow hovering over everything makes people feel like they have to say something even if they don’t want to. At The Hollywood Reporter, a headline captures the exasperated tone: “Cannes Dealmakers Are Already Sick of Talking About Trump’s Tariffs.” Everyone would prefer to gossip and go about their usual routines even as the theoretically imminent global recession seems to already be in effect. Purely based on visual tells—crowd sizes, the increased number of party invites I’ve gotten—attendance is down, yet tickets are harder to come by than ever, underlining a secondary theme of “artificial scarcity.” Darkness hovers over the… Read more
“There’s So Much Evil Done Because People Are Just Doing their Job”: Writer/Director Amalia Ulman On Her Satirical Comedy/Drama, Magic Farm
Chloe Sevigny in Magic Farm
Clueless and a bit pathetic, the American video crew in Magic Farm, writer-director Amalia Ulman’s new satirical comedy, embody the vices of Western media companies that exoticize, exploit and sanitize the stories of the developing world for views. Set in small-town Argentina, the film, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, mostly follows the crew — Edna (Chloë Sevigny), Jeff (Alex Wolff), Justin (Joe Apollonio) — as they try to fabricate the story of a non-existent music act by enlisting the locals’ help. Meanwhile, the more pressing narrative of how the use of glyphosate, sprayed overhead by crop-dusting planes, affects residents goes unnoticed. For this sophomore effort, Ulman returned to Argentina, the country of her birth, which she left as… Read more
“Do You Want To Be a Producer Today?” Daniel Tantalean’s Cannes Producer Diary #1
The Palais
Each year Filmmaker invites the The Gotham's Cannes Producer Network Fellows to post about their experiences attending the Cannes Film Festival. This year's entries begin with a post by Daniel Tantalean, who produced the 2024 Sundance Grand Jury Dramatic Prize Winner, In the Summers. My Love, It took 13 hours, but I finally landed in Nice and perhaps against better judgment, made the bold decision to take a bus and a train with two large suitcases in a city I don’t know, telling myself I’d be “adventurous.” I was met with confusion, crying babies, annoyed passengers and signage in a language I barely understand. On an overcrowded train to Cannes, my anxiety kicked in. I started questioning if I was even going… Read more
“I’m Not Interested in Horror Films”: Karan Kandhari on Sister Midnight
Radhika Apte and Ashok Pathak in Sister Midnight
It’s a full eight-and-half minutes into Sister Midnight before newlyweds Uma (Radhika Apte) and Gopal (Ashok Pathak) even say a word to each other; conflict immediately ensues. Confined to a cramped, one-room apartment after moving to Mumbai, the spitfire Uma finds herself ill-suited to the rigid traditional roles expected of Indian brides. Her bashful husband, on the other hand, rebuffs her attempts to seduce him with a polite handshake. In this lonely arranged marriage of stifled desires and out-of-sync conversations, even bangles soon begin to feel like shackles. Despite this, Karan Kandhari’s Hindi-language directorial debut unfolds as a domestic drama with a droll comic touch before shifting into a more supernatural gear as Uma gives in to burgeoning feral impulses,… Read more
17 Films We’re Looking Forward to at Cannes 2025
Sirat
With the Cannes Film Festival underway until May 24, here are 17 films our editors and writers are keenly anticipating. As always, look throughout the festival for reviews from Vadim Rizov and Blake Williams as well as interviews and festival reports. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt) For her return to Cannes following 2022’s Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt latches onto Josh O’Connor’s rising star; after his profile-elevating turns in La chimera and Challengers, he’s in two competition titles this year (the other is Oliver Hermanus’s The History of Sound). Here he’s opposite Alana Haim, who also has a lot to promote with her band’s fourth album out this summer and her role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another; as a result of… Read more
