08/05/2023 - Jean-Luc Godard’s last work, documentary Room 999 and animated movies Mars Express by Jérémie Périn and Robot Dreams by Pablo Berger join the festival selection

The final touches have been added to the programme of the 76th Cannes Film Festival  (running 16 – 27 May), and it’s definitely not lacking in appeal. Among the restored works screening in the Cannes Classics section (showcasing directors ranging from Yasujiro Ozu to Claude Sautet), tribute is notably set to be paid to the much-missed Jean-Luc Godard with a world premiere of Trailer of the Film that Will Never Exist: "Phony Wars". Produced by Saint Laurent via Anthony Vaccarello and by Vixens in co-production with L’Atelier, this 20-minute extract from Godard’s final work was introduced by the maestro himself as "No longer trusting the billions of dictates of the alphabet to give back freedom to the never-ending metamorphoses and metaphors of a real language by returning to/re-filming in places of past shoots, while taking current stories into account." Florence Platarets’ documentary Godard by Godard, produced by Ex Nihilo and presenting a self-portrait of Jean-Luc Godard based wholly on archive material, also graces the festival agenda.

A world premiere is likewise on the cards for Room 999 by Lubna Playoust, who borrows Wim Wenders’ approach for Room 666 in 1982, asking 30 contemporary filmmakers (ranging from Wim Wenders himself to James Gray, via Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Alice Rohrwacher, etc.) one same question at last year’s Cannes Film Festival: "Is cinema a disappearing language, an art which is going to die?".

Similarly worth a mention are the documentaries Liv Ullmann – A Road Less Travelled [+see also:
trailer
interview: Liv Ullmann
film profile] by Dheeraj Akolkar, Viva Varda! by Pierre-Henri Gibert and The Family by Michel Denisot and Florent Maillet.

The Young Audience line-up, meanwhile, which smiled upon Little Nicholas - Happy As Can Be [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amandine Fredon and Benjami…
film profile] last year, will be dedicated to Spanish director Pablo Berger’s hotly anticipated movie Robot Dreams [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Last but not least, among the many open-air screenings unfolding within the Cinéma de la Plage section, we’ll see world premieres of Géraldine Danon’s Flo (a biopic on navigator Florence Arthaud, nicknamed "the little bride of the Atlantic") and Jérémie Périn’s animation Mars Express [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jérémie Périn
film profile].

Full details of the selection can be found here.

(Translated from French)