Cronenberg among Canadians with premieres at Cannes fest

David Cronenberg is among the Canadians heading to the 77th Cannes Film Festival next month.

Organizers announced the full lineup Thursday, with Cronenberg’s The Shrouds among the 19 films competing for the Palme d’Or at the festival in the south of France, which runs from May 14 to 25.

Starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger and Guy Pearce, the Torontonian’s horror film tells the story of a prominent businessman who invents a controversial technology that helps people connect with their deceased loved ones.

Also headed to Cannes is Rumours, a Canadian co-production from Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin.

The dark comedy stars Cate Blanchett and follows several world leaders who get lost in the woods while trying to compose a joint statement at the G7. The movie will not be competing for a festival award.

Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada, which is in the competition, tells the story of famed documentarian Leonard Fife, an American leftist who fled to Canada to avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War.

Also among the 19 films selected for competition is Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, the Greek director’s follow-up to the Oscarwinning Poor Things. Its cast includes two stars of Poor Things: Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe.

Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian filmmaker of The Great Beauty, returns to Cannes with Parthenhope, a Naples-set drama co-starring Gary Oldman. Andrea Arnold, the British director of American Honey and Fish Tank, also returns to Cannes with Bird, starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski.

Sure to draw attention will be Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice, a film about former U.S. president Donald Trump’s early business career. In it, Sebastian Stan stars as Trump, Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova co-stars as Ivana Trump. The Iranian director Abbasi was previously in competition at Cannes with 2022’s Holy Spider.

Numerous other big-name filmmakers are also returning to Cannes, which runs May 14-25. Among them: Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke (Caught By the Tides); Sean Baker (Anora), whose Red Rocket and The Florida Project also premiered at Cannes; and the French filmmaker Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez), who won the Palme in 2015 for Dheepan.

This year’s Cannes follows a banner 2023 edition that featured the premieres of three films that went on to win best-picture nominations at the Academy Awards: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon; Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest; and Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner