It’s official folks! The drop date has been confirmed. There’ll be a couple of films that trickle in a bit after the announcement is made, but the Palme d’Or race will likely be a lock. Last year we had twenty-one films in the jamboree, and this year we’re expecting that exact sum +/- not more than one title for Ruben Östlund (plus eight jury friends) to parse through. We also had, if our count is correct, a whopping eight first-timers in the Palme d’Or comp make a splash. Thierry Frémaux clearly wants to expand the club. And while we are expecting a dip in those first-timers, we are also predicting that 2023 will have the most female filmmakers in the history of the Palme d’Or competition. You heard it here first.
So we’ve looked at the International Critics’ Week hopefuls (10), put in some Directors’ Fortnight guesses (20), added some Un Certain Regard love (25), and topped off our predictions coverage with Out of Competition titles with a firm 20. We’ve completed our guessing game, given the magic eight ball a couple of shakes. Here are two dozen hopefuls. Educated guesses and we’re really curious about the status of Steve McQueen’s Occupied City and Kirill Serebrennikov’s Limonov but… pencils down.
About Dry Grasses – 🇹🇷
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Last Croisette visit: The Wild Pear Tree (2018) – In Competition
Producer: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Sales: Memento International.
Anatomie d’une chute – 🇫🇷
Justine Triet
Last Croisette visit: Sibyl (2019) – In Competition
Producers: Marie-Ange Luciani, David Thion.
Sales: Les Films Pelléas.
Asteroid City – 🇺🇸
Wes Anderson
Last Croisette visit: The French Dispatch (2021) – In Competition
Producers: Wes Anderson, Jeremy Dawson, Steven Rales
Focus Features.
Club Zero – 🇦🇹
Jessica Hausner
Last Croisette visit: Little Joe (2019) – In Competition
Producers: Philippe Bober, Mike Goodridge, Johannes Schubert, Bruno Wagner
Sales: Coproduction Office.
Perdidos en la Noche – 🇲🇽
Amat Escalante
Last Croisette visit: Heli (2013) – In Competition
Producers: Nicolás Celis, Fernanda de la Peza.
Sales: TBA.
Enterre Seus Mortos – 🇧🇷
Marco Dutra
Last Croisette visit: Hard Labor (2011) – Un Certain Regard
Producers: Lourenço Sant’Anna, Rodrigo Teixeira, Alan Terpins.
Sales: TBA.
Eureka – 🇦🇷
Lisandro Alonso
Last Croisette visit: Jauja (2014) – Un Certain Regard
Producers: Carine Leblanc, Marianne Slot
Sales: Luxbox.
Io Capitano – 🇮🇹
Matteo Garrone
Last Croisette visit: Dogman (2018) – In Competition
Producer: Matteo Garrone
Sales: Pathe
L’amour et les forêts – 🇫🇷
Valérie Donzelli
Last Croisette visit: Marguerite & Julien (2015) – In Competition
Producers: Alice Girard, Edouard Weil.
Sales: TBA.
L’été dernier – 🇫🇷
Catherine Breillat
Last Croisette visit: The Last Mistress (2007) – In Competition
Producer: Saïd Ben Saïd
Sales: TBA.
L’île rouge – 🇫🇷
Robin Campillo
Last Croisette visit: BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017) – In Competition
Producer: Marie-Ange Luciani
Sales: Playtime.
La Chimera – 🇮🇹
Alice Rohrwacher
Last Croisette visit: Le pupille (short) (2022).
Producer: Carlo Cresto-Dina
Sales: TBA.
La Colline parfumée – 🇲🇷
Abderrahmane Sissako
Last Croisette visit: Timbuktu (2014) – In Competition
Producers:
Sales: TBA.
Le retour – 🇫🇷
Catherine Corsini
Last Croisette visit: La Fracture (2021) – In Competition
Producer: Elisabeth Perez
Sales: Playtime.
May December – 🇺🇸
Todd Haynes
Last Croisette visit: The Velvet Underground (2021) – Out of Competition
Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Grant S. Johnson, Pamela Koffler, Tyler W. Konney, Sophie Mas, Natalie Portman, Christine Vachon
Rocket Science
Memory – 🇲🇽
Michel Franco
Last Croisette visit: April’s Daughter (2017) – Un Certain Regard
Producers: Michel Franco, Duncan Montgomery, Eréndira Núñez Larios, Alex Orlovsky.
Sales: The Match Factory.
Monster – 🇯🇵
Kore-eda Hirokazu
Last Croisette visit: Broker (2022) – In Competition
Producer: Kenji Yamada
Sales: Wild Bunch International.
The Old Oak – 🇬🇧
Ken Loach
Last Croisette visit: Sorry We Missed You (2019) – In Competition
Producer: Rebecca O’Brien
Sales: Wild Bunch International.
Olfa’s Daughters – 🇹🇳
Kaouther Ben Hania
Last Croisette visit: Beauty and the Dog (2017) – Un Certain Regard
Producer: Hend Sabry.
Sales: TBA.
The Peasants – 🇵🇱
Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
Last Croisette visit: Never been.
Producers: Sean M. Bobbitt, Hugh Welchman.
Sales: TBA.
Poor Things – 🇬🇧
Yorgos Lanthimos
Last Croisette visit: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) – In Competition
Producers: Ed Guiney, Ali Herting, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrew Lowe, Dave McCary, Emma Stone
Searchlight Pictures
Untitled Sean Baker Film 🇺🇸
Sean Baker
Last Croisette visit: Red Rocket (2021) – In Competition
Producers: TBD.
Sales: TBA.
The Zone of Interest – 🇬🇧
Jonathan Glazer
Last Croisette visit: Never been.
Producers: Ewa Puszczynska, James Wilson
A24.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
