The 2025 Cannes Festival is arriving this week. Oscar-nominated Jeremy Strong and Oscar-winning Halle Berry are part of the jury this year. Lots and lots of activities to visit and an unforgettable atmosphere to feel. Cinéma de la Plage with retrospectives along with sea waves and sand. Wes Anderson with the Phoenician scheme and Jafar Panahi with it was just an accident wandering around the city along the Boulevard de la Croisette. Robert Pattinson, on his 2025 run for Oscars with his co-star Jennifer Lawrence, is only some of the big stars present this year in the main category of competition. And within all this chaos, 7 Italian figures attending the Festival this year. Let’s talk closer:
- Matteo Zoppis — in Un Certain Regard (a competition between unusual, non-traditional films) with Testa o croce?, co-directed with Alessio Rigo de Righi and featuring John C. Reilly as an actor. Matteo, who started his professional career in New York, puts on the table a story of a love triangle and persecution that turns into a dream of America. A clash of a Wild West cowboy and an Italian love couple.
- Francesco Sossai — same category, this time with Le città di pianura. The film, sharing its title with a Cormac McCarthy novel, tells the story of two 50-year-olds drifting from bar to bar, who stumble upon an architecture student. How their worldviews transform one another becomes the heart of this road movie and the emotional plexus between the three.
- Mario Martone — owner of the Leone d’Argento from the Venice Film Festival, presents his latest film Fuori, an autobiographical work based on the novel by Goliarda Sapienza. The film unveils a story that happened in 1980, with Goliarda forced to steal in order to survive. In this forgotten condition, she finds herself more at peace with her inmates than with the Italian cultural scene. The post-mortem success of her literary career now brings the adaptation to the top of the cinema world, with a battle for the main prize in the Competition category.
- Zuzana Kirchnerová — Czech director presenting her Italy-based film Karavan, a mother-son drama of escape from adulthood stopped by reality. Shot in Emilia-Romagna and produced by Tempesta — the same company behind La Chimera (2023). The debut director’s work is based on personal experience raising a son with Down syndrome. The film implies an important turn to make next year passing by the cinema.
- Nanni Moretti — outside the main competition — his classic Palombella Rossa will be screened on the beach at 21:30 on May 18, as part of the Cinéma de la Plage projections. The film, set in Sicily, is a metaphor for the loss of identity of the Italian Communist Party. The main character, a PCI member, loses his memory and, during a water polo match, tries to recover it.
- Alice Rohrwacher — this year, the acclaimed director of La Chimera (2023) takes on a new role: presenting the Caméra d’Or, the award for the best first feature across all sections of the festival. Known for her poetic realism and deep-rooted stories of rural Italy, Rohrwacher brings her sensibility to a prize that celebrates new cinematic voices.
- Alba Rohrwacher — amazingly her sister on in the competition jury! An internationally acclaimed actress starring in Perfect Strangers, Hungry Hearts and a frequent collaborator with her sister’s director features.
This is a summary of the most anticipated Italian releases on French soil. Only time will tell what the films have in them, but no one forbids you to tiffare for your favorite director!
Viktor Smolkin
source of the image: https://it.pinterest.com/pin/9429480465102198/
The Password 