Cannes Film Festival 2021: 13 movies we’re excited about, including Palme d’Or winner Titane

Two days before it claimed one of cinema’s top prizes, a provocative and violent new movie was called “the most shocking film of 2021”.

With Australians shivering through winter and – for some of us – lockdowns, the sight of glamorous actors posing for photos shoulder-to-shoulder on the French Riviera is enough to stir the green-eyed monster.

The 2021 Cannes Film Festival just wrapped up after two weeks of red carpets, celebrities and photo calls that immediately turned into memes. Tilda Swinton was particularly busy with three premieres and winning the Palm Dog award.

There were also some films, including Nitram, the Australian Port Arthur massacre movie which screened in official competition and for which Caleb Landry Jones won Best Actor.

Here are the Cannes movies we’re most excited about.

TITANE

The BBC called it “wild and transgressive” and “the most shocking film of 2021”, two days before Cannes awarded Julia Ducournau the top prize, the Palme d’Or.

Apparently, it will elicit all manner of groans, yelps, winces and other visceral reactions to its violent, body-horror story about a young girl who survives a car crash who then goes on to have a very peculiar relationship with automobiles – the kind that results in spawn.

By all accounts, that description is underselling Titane, a movie that supposedly evokes the spirit of provocative filmmakers David Cronenberg, David Lynch and Gaspar Noe — and then takes it up a notch or five.

Titane has no confirmed Australian distributor yet.

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ANNETTE

With a story, music and songs by rock and pop duo Sparks, and directed by French filmmaker Leos Carax in his English-language debut, Annette was the opening night film at Cannes.

The much-anticipated film stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as a stand-up comedian and his popular opera singer whose lives are changed when they have a child. If the trailer is anything to go by, Annette looks incredibly intense and epic.

Annette will screen at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 6 and then releases nationally on August 26 through Madman Entertainment

THE FRENCH DISPATCH

Wes Anderson’s new film was meant to debut at Cannes last year and its long delay has many cinephiles impatient to feast their eyes on its visual delights.

With a crazy good cast including Timothee Chalamet, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, the movie is a love letter to journalists, set at a fictional New Yorker-style publication in France.

The French Dispatch will be released on October 21 through Disney

NITRAM

A lightning rod for controversy due to its sensitive subject – the lead-up to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre – Nitram was the first Australian film in a decade to be selected to screen in competition at Cannes.

The question for many audience members will be whether director Justin Kurzel tells the story of this dark chapter in recent Australian history with care and nuance or whether it will be exploitative. Early reports out of Cannes suggest the former.

Nitram will be premiere at MIFF on August 6 and will be released nationally in cinemas through Madman at a later date, followed by streaming on Stan

Nitram will premiere in Australia at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

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WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

The final film in Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy, the Worst Person in the World won the Best Actress award for lead Renate Reinsve.

Rom-com Worst Person in the World is centred on a character on the verge of turning 30, as she navigates the challenges of a world that demands one thing (maturity) as she experiences another (restlessness).

Worst Person in the World will be released in Australia through Madman Entertainment

AFTER YANG

Adapted from Alexander Weinstein’s short story by director Kogonada (a nom de plume for a visual artist whose “real name” remains a mystery, he previously made Columbus with John Cho), After Yang stars Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith and Justin H. Min.

It’s a sci-fi film set in the future where a family mourns the loss of their robot after it becomes unresponsive, a gentle story that parses loss, memory and connections.

BERGMAN ISLAND

From director Mia Hanson-Love and starring Tim Roth, Vicky Krieps and Mia Wasikowska, Bergman Island is set on and named after Faro Island, off the coast of Sweden where filmmaker Ingmar Bergman lived and died.

The story is centred on a creative couple who move to the island hoping to tap into the same well of inspiration only to find the line blurred between reality and fiction.

Bergman Island will premiere at MIFF on August 7 and will be released in Australia through Umbrella Entertainment

Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth in Bergman Island.

COW

It’s so great to see Fish Tank and American Honey director Andrea Arnold bounce back after that drama on Big Little Lies season two, and she continues her streak of films with animal-related titles.

Described by The New York Times as “one of the most moving films at Cannes”, it’s a documentary about two bovines.

Cow will be released in Australia through Madman Entertainment

A HERO

Two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi’s triumphant return to Cannes this year is capped off with winning the Grand Prix prize for A Hero.

The story is about a man who is in prison for unpaid debts. When he’s given a two-day temporary release, he sets out to ask his debtor to forgive it but it doesn’t go as planned.

A Hero will premiere at MIFF on August 7 and will be released in Australia at a later date through Hi Gloss Entertainment

MEMORIA

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has won three prizes previously at Cannes, including the Palme d’Or for Uncle Boomee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, so he’s certainly no stranger to the prestigious festival.

Memoria is set in Colombia and stars Tilda Swinton as a British expat who lives in Medellin, but when visiting her sick sister and husband in Bogota, she finds herself started by a loud bang – a triggering experience that leads to an awakening.

Memoria will be released in Australia through Madman Entertainment

Memoria is one of three films Tilda Swinton premiered at Cannes.

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RED ROCKET

Director Sean Baker is known for working with unknown actors and for being creatively nimble (he filmed Tangerine on an iPhone before Steven Soderbergh was doing it), and he brings that scrappy spirit to Red Rocket.

It stars rapper, comedian and VJ Simon Rex as a washed-up porn star who returns to his small hometown, but no one wants him back.

Red Rocket will be released in Australia through Roadshow

THE SOUVENIR PART II

Joanna Hogg’s 2019 film The Souvenir didn’t seem a likely candidate for a sequel given it was a small, intimate film about a young woman in the 1980s enmeshed in a relationship with an older man. It mostly took place within one apartment and had zero car chases.

And yet, the power of Hogg’s filmmaking and its stars Tilda Swinton and her onscreen and real-life daughter Honor Swinton Byrne, propelled a second chapter focused on the next years of Hogg’s semi-autobiographical story.

DRIVE MY CAR

Adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story by Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car won the Screenplay award at Cannes, plus prizes from critics and the Ecumenical Jury.

The story is about a theatre director who two years after the death of his wife is asked to stage a production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya but needs someone to drive him across country. It’s a road trip that turns into a series of confessionals.

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