DAILY FILMS FOR CANNES MAY 18TH
IN COMPETITION
GARANCE by Jeanne Herry at 8:30
Runtime: 2h00
Garance is a gifted young actress whose raw magnetism and vibrant spirit have yet to earn her the recognition she craves. Living paycheck to paycheck in a small Paris apartment, she feels increasingly suffocated by fleeting relationships, rising anxiety and the grip of an alcohol addiction quietly tightening around her life. But amid the chaos, her devotion to her sick younger sister and a tender, blossoming romance with Pauline, offer Garance a fragile lifeline. As these bonds deepen, she finds the strength to confront the darkness she has long avoided – setting her on a difficult but transformative journey to self-renewal.
HOPE by Na Hong-jin at 11:30
Runtime: 2h40
Reinforcements have been diverted to battle wildfires and all communication has been cut off.
Hope’s police outpost chief Bum-seok and officer Sung-ae struggle to defend a village of the elderly, while in the mountains, Sung-ki and the locals who set out to track the beast find themselves hunted instead.
What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.
The Unknown by Arthur Harari at 15:30
Runtime: 2h19
David Zimmerman, almost 40, is a photographer but no one knows it. When friends drag him to a wild party, he spots a woman in the crowd and can’t take his eyes off her, he follows her… A few hours later, David wakes up : he’s in the body of the unknown woman.
FJORD by Cristian Mungiu at 19:00
Runtime: 2h26
The Gheorghius, a devout Romanian Norwegian couple, resettle in a village set in a distant fjord where they become close to their neighbours, the Halbergs. Their children bond despite their different education.
When adolescent Elia Gheorghiu shows up at school with some bruises on her body, the community asks itself if the traditional education that the Gheorghiu children get from their parents might have anything to do with it.
CANNES PREMIERES
VESNA by Rostislav Kirpičenko at 16:00
Runtime: 1h33
In occupied Ukraine, the Russians are prohibiting the burial of executed Ukrainian civilians.
Andriy, a 35-year-old priest, sees his church turned into a morgue. Forced to store the bodies of executed civilians there before they disappear into mass graves, he resists in secret: he identifies the dead, returns them to their families, and gives them a dignified burial. But winter freezes the ground, and the threat grows. How will he continue to resist?
L’AFFAIRE MARIE-CLAIRE (WOMEN ON TRIAL) by Lauriane Escaffre & Yvo Muller at 19:15
Runtime: 1h42
1972. A landmark trial shakes France as young Marie-Claire is prosecuted for having an illegal abortion with the help of her mother and two other defendants. In a courtroom governed by men, the verdict seems inevitable: prison for the women, while the rapist goes unpunished. Their last hope lies with Gisèle Halimi, a fearless lawyer known for openly challenging patriarchy and confronting the system that condemns victims and lets perpetrators walk free. Alongside the accused, Gisèle will not only change their fate, but, against allodds, transform the condition of women forever.
AQUÍ by Tiago Guedes at 20:15
Runtime: 3h23
In a place where everyone begins again without a past, Simón takes responsibility for David, a child he meets on the crossing to a new life. Driven by an inexplicable conviction, he sets out to find the boy’s mother and recognizes Inés as the right woman. She accepts, and an unlikely bond forms between them, where the idea of family is constantly reinvented. But as society imposes rules and treats difference as a threat, David resists being shaped and stands as its opposite: imagination and freedom, turning parenthood into an uncertain journey, a search without answers, where to love is also to accept not understanding.
HER PRIVATE HELL by Nicolas Winding Refn at 22:30
Runtime: 1h49
When a mysterious mist engulfs a futuristic metropolis, unleashing a deadly and elusive entity, a troubled young woman searches for her father. Her quest collides with an American GI on a harrowing odyssey to rescue his daughter from Hell.
UN CERTAIN REGARD
EVERYTIME by Sandra Wollner at 11:30
Runtime: 2h01
A tragedy brings a mother, daughter, and teenage boy together. Struggling with blame and forgiveness, the unlikely trio take a trip to Tenerife for a family holiday that never happened. Under the glow of the sun, past and present quietly start to overlap.
STRAWBERRIES by Laïla Marrakchi at 14:30
Runtime: 1h41
Two young women leave their native Morocco to work as seasonal laborers picking strawberries in Southern Spain. Hoping to return home and provide a better life for their families, their dreams clash with a harsh reality: abuse, harassment, and undignified working conditions at the hands of their employers. The bond they share as unified sisterhood, empowers them to rise above their situation, despite the risks that are needed to advocate for their rights. They must make the difficult decision to speak out against a powerful patriarchal system, risking everything for their own personal justice.
CANNES CLASSICS
SACEM – LA LEÇON DE MUSIQUE: AMINE BOUHAFA at 14:00
Runtime: 1h30
EVE by Maria Plyta at 16:00
Runtime: 1h30
EVE (1953) heralds the arrival of cinematic modernism in Europe, in the same way that Agnes Varda’s Pointe-Courte, is now considered in the bibliography to be the forerunner of the French Nouvelle Vague. Eve is the filmmaker’s first work with a plot set in the present and based on an original script that explores themes of betrayal and marital oppression through the story of a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage who begins a passionate affair. Maria Plyta created a radical representation of female sexual desire, female self-actualization, and presenting the male body as a source of visual pleasure. Additionally, with Eve, Plyta raises concerns about the institution of marriage, which can trap two people in a daily life full of anger, depression, and even hatred.
NOSTALGIA FOR THE FUTURE (NOSTALGIE DU FUTUR) by Brecht Debackere at 18:00
Runtime: 1h15
Guided by the narration of Charlotte Rampling, Nostalgia for the Future is a descent into the labyrinthine world of Chris Marker, the “best-known author of unknown films,” who spent a lifetime concealing himself behind a veil of pseudonyms and images of cats. Moving through a constellation of personal documents and film fragments, an archivist attempts to decode the man through the material traces he left behind.
By repurposing and recontextualizing Marker’s own body of work, the film treats his images as “time machines,” transforming the archive into a landscape of living memory. Nostalgia for the Future is a meditation on memory, identity, and the power our past images hold over the futures we imagine.
LOVE CIRCLE by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi at 19:45
Runtime: 2h05
A successful playwright and his wife regularly invite an actor friend and his mistress to dinner. These gatherings are merely the façade for a perverse psychological game in which each person manipulates the others in a choreography of desire, betrayal, and domination. The husband pushes his wife into the arms of his friend, while the boundaries between couples blur in a sensual ballet.
SÉANCES DU LENDEMAIN
I’LL BE GONE IN JUNE by Katharina Rivilis at 8:30
Runtime: 2h05
In 2001, Franny, a 16-year-old exchange student from Germany, arrives in the sleepy desert town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Far from home, Franny struggles through awkward school days, stifling heat, and restless nights until she meets Elliott, a boy whose quiet sadness mirrors her own. As America reels from 9/11, something resonates within Franny and an unexpected tenderness begins to bloom.
GARANCE by Jeanne Herry at 8:30
Runtime: 2h00
Garance is a gifted young actress whose raw magnetism and vibrant spirit have yet to earn her the recognition she craves. Living paycheck to paycheck in a small Paris apartment, she feels increasingly suffocated by fleeting relationships, rising anxiety and the grip of an alcohol addiction quietly tightening around her life. But amid the chaos, her devotion to her sick younger sister and a tender, blossoming romance with Pauline, offer Garance a fragile lifeline. As these bonds deepen, she finds the strength to confront the darkness she has long avoided – setting her on a difficult but transformative journey to self-renewal.
MOULIN by László Nemes at 11:00
Runtime: 2h10
June 1943. French Resistance leader Jean Moulin is arrested while attempting to unify the Secret Army’s various forces.
Interrogated by Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo in Lyon, Moulin is drawn into a relentless confrontation.
His final battle against manipulation and brutality begins.
The fate of Free France hangs in the balance
WHEN THE NIGHT FALLS by Daniel Auteuil at 13:45
Runtime: 1h40
August 1942. Amid the occupation, the Vichy government organizes a mass round-up of foreign Jews. Gilbert Lesage, a young civil servant at the Service Social des Étrangers, is tasked with setting up a screening commission to rule on the fate of the arrested Jews, while Father Alexandre Glasberg, a committed humanitarian, maneuvers to save them. Caught between Vichy’s bureaucracy and mutual-support networks, they will have to join forces to defy the machinery of the State and risk the unthinkable to wrench lives from the grim fate that awaits them.
ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT by Sode Yukiko at 14:00
Runtime: 2h19
Fuyuko lives quietly, working as a freelance proofreader, her days largely free of contact with others except for occasional outings with an outgoing colleague. Accustomed to solitude, she moves through her days without expectation. Her only personal ritual is walking alone through the city at midnight on her birthday. A subtle shift begins when she meets Mitsutsuka, a reserved high school physics teacher, at a local culture center. Drawn to his gentle manner and his words—”Next time, let’s talk about light”— Fuyuko begins meeting him regularly at a café. As their encounters slowly accumulate, a fragile sense of connection takes shape. Yet both carry things they do not easily reveal.
HOPE by Na Hong-jin at 21:15
Runtime: 2h40
Reinforcements have been diverted to battle wildfires and all communication has been cut off.
Hope’s police outpost chief Bum-seok and officer Sung-ae struggle to defend a village of the elderly, while in the mountains, Sung-ki and the locals who set out to track the beast find themselves hunted instead.
What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.
