Cannes Film Festival 2025
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“We’re On the Cusp of a Real Revolution in Independent Film”: Producer Joe Pirro on Cannes 2025
Producers Joe Pirro and Caroline Clark attended the 2025 Cannes Film Festival as Gotham Cannes Producer Network Fellows. Pirro is with the New York company Symbolic Exchange, and Clark L.A.’s Kindred Spirit. The two recently collaborated on Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet, and here, in a part one of a two-part conversation, that share their festival debrief. First up, Clark querying Pirro. Clark: You were awarded this year’s Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction at the Sundance Film Festival. From a decorated producer’s point of view, how do you like to prioritize your time at Cannes, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 26, 2025 -
Cannes 2025: Awards, Young Mothers, Sentimental Value, Resurrection
The cinema world was quick to juxtapose an image from the climax of this year’s award ceremony—where Iranian director Jafar Panahi took home the Palme d’Or for his generously-received It Was Just an Accident—alongside one in which this year’s jury president Juliette Binoche protested Panahi’s 2010 arrest and imprisonment while she accepted her Best Actress prize for Certified Copy. The latter image, one of the most indelible of recent Cannes history, also circulated a bit after the lineup was announced several weeks before the festival began, as many doubted Binoche’s capacity for impartiality. Whether or not Panahi’s film needed only […]
by Blake Williams on May 26, 2025 -
“There’s a Reason We Call Them ‘Films’ and Not ‘SD Cards'”: Francesco Sossai on His Cannes-Premiering The Last One for the Road
The film festival world can be so depressingly homogenous that to come across a title straying beyond its aesthetic and storytelling conventions is nothing short of exhilarating. The Last One for the Road is one such film. Conversant as it may be with a long and varied set of influences—from 1960s Italian comedies all the way to Aki Kaurismäki—Francesco Sossai’s second feature synthesizes its touchstones into something that feels bracingly alive. It heralds its writer-director as a new talent to watch, and confirms that the most exciting Italian cineastes working today are those shooting a long way away from the […]
by Leonardo Goi on May 25, 2025 -
Rosé, Learning about Co-Productions and a Charli XCX DJ Set: Ani Schroeter’s Cannes Producer Network Diary
Producer Ani Schroeter (Bunnylovr) attended the 2025 Cannes Film Festival as The Gotham Cannes Producers Network Fellow. Below find her wrap on the festival and her experiences at the Producers Network. I feel like I’m coming down from my first week as a high school freshman. The Cannes Film Festival was daunting, invigorating and I cannot wait to go back. While at most U.S. festivals, running into film friends on the street is the norm, at Cannes, they are few and far between. At least for a newbie like me. This was my first year at Cannes, and I am […]
by Ani Schroeter on May 22, 2025 -
American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase Announces 2025 Winners
The American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival has announced the winners of this year’s Emerging Filmmaker Showcase sponsored by Gold House. Gold House awarded the inaugural Cultural Impact award to Andy “Celeste” Diep for Happy New Year, Ms. Luna. This award was conceived to recognize a filmmaker across the showcase’s categories whose work exemplifies excellence in multicultural narratives or underrepresented perspectives. “Happy New Year, Ms. Luna” also won the Emerging Filmmaker LGBTQ+ Award. The film’s director, Andy “Celeste” Diep is a AmPav Student Program Alumni from 2015. “It’s been wonderful to have almost all the 25 filmmakers with their […]
by Filmmaker Staff on May 22, 2025 -
“We Do Believe the Audience is More Intelligent Than the Industry Thinks: Producer Sylvain Corbeil on the Cannes-Premiering Peak Everything
Since founding Metafilms over two decades ago, Montreal-based producer Sylvain Corbeil has become a prolific and respected pillar of Quebec’s independent film scene, collaborating with filmmakers whose bold and idiosyncratic visions have served to bolster the place of modern Canadian cinema on a world stage. Alongside fellow producer Nancy Grant, who co-leads Metafilms, Corbeil has championed the work of widely acclaimed French-language filmmakers like Xavier Dolan (Mommy, It’s Only the End of the World), Maxime Giroux (Felix & Meira), Denis Côté (That Kind of Summer), Monia Chokri (A Brother’s Love), and Anne Émond (Nuit #1, Our Loved Ones). A frequent […]
by Isaac Feldberg on May 20, 2025 -
“We’re All Fighting to Tell Our Stories”: Daniel Tantalean’s Cannes Producer Diary #2
In the Summers producer Daniel Tantalean is a 2025 Gotham Cannes Producer Network Fellow and is blogging about his experience at the festival here at Filmmaker. Like his first post, this second entry takes the form of a letter written home to his fiance. My Love, I’m at the halfway point of this experience. And though I’ve started most mornings by sending you a quick text, just something sweet for you to wake up to, I still miss you terribly. Being here without you by my side feels like something is always slightly out of frame. At this point, sleep […]
by Daniel Tantalean on May 20, 2025 -
Cannes 2025: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning; Eddington; Sirât
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 […]
by Blake Williams on May 18, 2025 -
“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
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 […]
by Leonardo Goi on May 18, 2025 -
“You Think You’re Scared of These Creatures, Well, Look Into Our Own Dark Hearts”: Sean Byrne on His Cannes-Premiering Shark Attack Horror Film, Dangerous Animals
For most viewers, sharks and horror cinema were permanently conjoined with Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film Jaws, one of the first wide release summer blockbusters, and one with shocks far more intense than its PG rating would indicate. Today, shark horror has migrated to the small (and vertical) screen, with TikTok’s algorithm serving many of us — me, somewhat inexplicably, included — a never ending gallery of shark attacks, menacing underwater shark approaches and the occasional gliding shark beauty shot. Australian director Sean Byrne’s Cannes-premiering Dangerous Animals confidently mines these lingering fears and fascinations as it mashes up the shark horror […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 17, 2025
