PATIS, France — Here are the 22 films competing for the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14-25, and some of the films showing out of competition.
‘Megalopolis’ (Francis Ford Coppola )
This self-funded epic — a Roman drama transplanted to modern-day New York starring Adam Driver — has been in the works for more than 40 years. Coppola has twice won the Palme d’Or — for “The Conversation” (1974) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979).
‘The Apprentice’ (Ali Abbasi)
A biopic about Donald Trump’s formative years from an award-winning Iranian director is bound to grab attention. It stars Sebastian Stan, best-known as the Winter Soldier in Marvel films and rocker Tommy Lee in series “Pam and Tommy”, alongside Jeremy Strong of “Succession” fame as Trump’s lawyer.
‘Kinds of Kindness’ (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Three short stories in one, this is the latest team-up between the Greek director and Emma Stone, just weeks after she won an Oscar for “Poor Things”, also starring Willem Defoe and Margaret Qualley.
‘The Shrouds’ (David Cronenberg)
The horror maestro’s latest supernatural drama is about a man who builds a device to connect with his dead wife — a deeply personal project for the Canadian director who lost his wife in 2017. It stars Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger.
‘Oh, Canada’ (Paul Schrader)
The iconic writer-director has been on a roll lately with a string of dramas about obsessive and dangerous men. He reunites with his “American Gigolo” star Richard Gere for the story of a dying man reflecting on his past mistakes.
‘Emilia Perez’ (Jac ques Audiard)
Quite the synopsis — a musical about a Mexican cartel boss undergoing a sex change to escape the authorities, with pop superstar Selena Gomez in a supporting role. The unpredictable French director has tried many genres, from “The Prophet” and “Rust and Bone” to his Palme d’Or-winning “Dheepan”.
‘The Substance’ (Coralie Fargeat)
An unlikely comeback vehicle for Demi Moore — an ultra-violent horror film from the French director of 2017’s “Revenge” that will “leave a lot of blood on the screen”, according to festival director Thierry Fremaux.
‘The Most Precious of Cargoes’ (Michel Hazanavicius)
The first animation in competition since 2008’s “Waltz With Bashir” is the tale of a twin thrown to safety from a death train transporting his Jewish parents to Auschwitz, from the director of the Oscar-winning “The Artist”.
‘Limonov’ (Kirill Serebrennikov)
The exiled Russian director tackles the bizarre true life of dissident poet Eduard Limonov, who fled the Soviet Union but returned to found a new Bolshevik Party after the Cold War.
‘Parthenope’ (Paolo Sorrentino)
Another love letter to his native Naples from the Oscar-winning director of “The Great Beauty” and Netflix series “The Young Pope”.
‘Bird’ (Andrea Arnold)
The celebrated British auteur returns with a coming-of-age tale set in an English suburb, starring Barry Keoghan (“Saltburn”). Arnold won an Oscar for short film “Wasp” and made acclaimed features “Red Road” and “Fish Tank”.
‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Imprisoned for criticising Iran’s government and barred from leaving the country, Rasoulof has already faced pressure to pull his latest film from the Cannes line-up. Its plot remains under wraps.
‘Anora’ (Sean Baker)
A darling of the US indie scene for his portraits of marginalised characters in “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket”, Baker returns with a “romantic adventure” starring “Scream” actress Mikey Madison.
‘The Girl with the Needle’ (Magnus von Horn)
Loosely based on the story of a Danish serial killer who helped poor women kill their unwanted children in the early 20th century.
‘Motel Destino’ (Karim Ainouz)
An erotic comedy-thriller from the Brazilian director of Henry VIII drama “Firebrand”, which competed in Cannes last year.
‘Grand Tour’ (Miguel Gomes)
The story of a British colonial officer in Burma who flees his wedding but is pursued by his bride.
‘Marcello Mio’ (Christophe Honore)
The fictional tale of a woman who starts impersonating her father, the late Italian screen icon Marcello Mastroianni. It features French icon Catherine Deneuve.
‘Caught by the Tides’ (Jia Zhang-Ke)
One of China’s most celebrated auteurs offers a view of the country “we are not necessarily used to seeing”, according to Fremaux.
‘All We Imagine As Light’ (Payal Kapadia)
The first Indian entry in 30 years tells the intimate stories of a Mumbai nurse and her roommate.
‘Beating Hearts (Gilles Lellouche)
The French actor-director adapts an Irish novel, “Jackie Loves Johnser OK?”, with Francois Civil and Adele Exarchopoulos.
‘Wild Diamond’ (Agathe Riedinger)
A debut film about a young French girl seeking fame on reality TV.
‘Three Kilometres to the End of the World’ (Emanuel Parvu)
A surprise last-minute entry about a gay teenager ostracised by his village community in Romania.
Here is a selection of the films playing in the ‘Out of Competition’ and ‘Special Screenings’ sections of the festival.
‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ (George Miller)
‘Horizon, An American Saga’ (Kevin Costner)
‘Lula’ (Oliver Stone)
‘She’s Got No Name’ (Peter Ho-Sun)
‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ (Alexandre de la Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte)
‘Rumours’ (Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin)
‘Ernest Cole, Lost and Found’ (Raoul Peck)
‘The Invasion’ (Sergei Loznitsa)
NEW YORK, United States — With fantastical characters including mud people and giant grandmothers, an AI film festival is giving a glimpse of the storytelling made possible by the novel technology.
Nearly 3,000 short films were submitted to the festival organized by Runway AI, one of the leading start-ups in the field of AI-powered video generation.
The 10 films selected put the filmmakers’ vivid imaginations on display, with their stories set in aesthetically stunning universes.
“There is a perception of … AI- driven filmmaking and creation as having a very specific style,” Runway co-founder and chief technology officer Anastasis Germanidis told AFP.
But each of the selected films “feels very different from the other one,” he said Thursday at the festival’s awards ceremony.
Movie making and animation having grown by leaps and bounds in the past 50 years, past feature films like “Inception,” “The Matrix” and “Loving Vincent” come to mind when watching the AI shorts.
But the latest technology allows films to be made on a fraction of a typical movie budget, and by anyone with access to a computer and the software.
With just a prompt, Runway can transform a series of still images into a short video, or turn a photo into a painting.
In February, generative AI leader OpenAI launched its video creation software, dubbed Sora, while Google and Meta are developing their own versions, called Lumiere and Emu, respectively.
For his short that won an Honoree prize at the festival, Leo Cannone generated hundreds of images using the AI application Midjourney, then animated them with Runway, making countless edits along the way.
Current AI technology is still underdeveloped in some areas, particularly in providing multiple camera angles and creating flawless human-like speaking characters.
“I couldn’t really have (human) characters or dialogue, so that set the aesthetic of the film,” the French director said of his short, about what happens to grandmothers after they die. (Spoiler: they become giants.)
With the AI-generated visuals “there were still a lot of defects in each scene, so I had to retouch a lot. It doesn’t come out of the software ready to use.”
Runway co-founder Alejandro Matamala conceded the technology wasn’t yet perfected.
“If you want a photorealistic character that is human… we are not as advanced to do that. But we are saying, there are more different types of ways to tell stories.”
Runway is currently developing something it calls “General World Models,” an AI system that can simulate a real world environment by anticipating how future events unfold in a dynamic setting.
The three Runway co-founders do not come from computer engineering backgrounds, rather, they studied art-related fields at New York University.
The trio are focused on creating a “common language” for programming and creativity, citing Apple and Pixar as examples.
“For some of the emerging filmmakers like me, it represents a real opportunity to turn the typical model of the Hollywood industry,” said Carlo De Togni, who also won an award at the festival.
“Artists could bring to life some new stories without having the money,” he said, pointing out that some generative AI platforms offered subscriptions for only $30 or $50 a month.
In the future, “independent production will be probably more closer to some Hollywood productions and maybe they could really face (off with) each other,” the Italian director said.
The prospect of such a sea change in filmmaking is so troubling to Hollywood that actors and screenwriters staged a monthslong strike last summer, demanding protection against generative AI, among other things.
For De Togni, the technology will eventually become commonplace, and what will be more important are “your ideas, your thoughts,” in using the tools to bring a vision to life.
AI filmmaking already cuts out work currently done by various professionals, putting industry jobs at risk.
But Runway co-founder and CEO Cristobal Valenzuela said automation “really happens all the time, but the jobs themselves are going to change.”
“That’s the role of technology — to allow us to change.”