From its early beginnings as a propaganda to promote arts and culture, in particular, to advance national cinema, festivals served as a cultural tool to assert power and influence. Cannes Film Festival, previously known as Festival international du film was conceived as a counter reaction to Venice International Film Festival, the world’s oldest film festival. Due to political bias and controversies in the early days of Venice, a free festival on an international scale was formed by French authorities and they decided to hold the event at the French Riviera resort town - the city of Cannes.

Each festival has its own distinct personality. The “Big Five” major international film festivals (Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, Venice, Berlin) hold their positions in the film festival world and film industry mainly due to their influence on highlighting certain films and filmmakers thus the fixation on aspiring to be part of the official selection or lineup. The Berlinale is distinct with its political perspectives. Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is an audience-driven festival and one of the biggest public film festivals in the world. Venice, with its prestige fare and Sundance with its massive independent film slate and attention to emerging filmmakers. Cannes, arguably the most prestigious film festival in the world is auteur-driven and has its eyes on master filmmakers and artists around the globe, a spotlight on the best in World Cinema.

The 74th edition of Cannes Film Festival will be held this July, after it was cancelled last year due to the pandemic. Spike Lee will be the head of the jury for the festival. The Official Selection was announced back in June with 24 films in Competition. Part of the selection last year that will compete for Palme d’Or (the festival’s highest prize) includes Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta. Two previous winners of the Golden Palm will be in contention again for the top prize, Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Palme d’Or 2010, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) for his film Memoria starring Tilda Swinton and Jacques Audiard (Palme d’Or 2015, Dheepan) for Paris, 13th District.

Four female filmmakers will compete this year, still a small number given Cannes’ commitment to gender parity. Ildiko Enyedi (Golden Bear 2017, On Body and Soul) will be presenting her new film The Story of My Wife. Julia Docournau, known for her film Raw, will be competing with a thriller drama, Titane. French filmmakers Mia Hansen-Love and Catherine Corsini will be in the same roster as well with Bergman Island and The Divide, respectively.

After the back to back Palme d’Or in 2018 and 2019, with Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) and South Korean master Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), the Asian contingent were relatively small this year with 3 filmmakers in competition: Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria and Nadav Lapid’s Ahed’s Knee. African region will be represented by Nabil Ayouch’s Casablanca Beats and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Lingui. The festival’s opening night film is the much anticipated musical film Annette by Leos Carax, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.

A notable absence with this year’s selection is a bunch of Netflix titles, particularly Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, given her stature as the only female director to have won the Palme d’Or. Cannes has strict rules for those films in Competition where a film should have screened first in a theatre under a certain window before its exhibition in streaming platforms. This rule has prompted the streaming giant to skip the festival and in recent years has been a source of debate about how films should be seen and in turn how to preserve the theatrical experience.

We’re still in the midst of a pandemic. Restrictive public health measures have forced film studios and companies to rethink ways of delivering movies to their audiences. Day and date release strategies (playing both in cinemas and streaming or VOD), shorter windows for exhibition, changing viewing habits, accessibility and convenience of watching movies at home - all these factors are part of the shifting cinema viewing landscape. Last year, hybrid versions of film festivals were the norm (combination of physical and online screenings). The reimagined versions of Sundance and Toronto allowed greater accessibility and viewership across the United States and Canada, positive feedback on how audiences were given access to experience those festivals through the virtual viewing platforms. Cannes Film Festival will be moving forward with its physical, in-person screenings this July, a little later than usual and still under the threat of a global health crisis. The festival is still holding its position in preserving the cinematic experience and rightfully so, with France, considered as the birthplace of cinema.

Lots of questions and uncertainties have risen out of this pandemic. With the shifting cinema viewing landscape, will it come to a certain point in time where the ONLY communal experience of being in awe, of feeling that movie magic, are those special places once formed to celebrate cinema?

The 74th edition of Cannes Film Festival runs from July 6 - 17. Here are the films selected for Competition:

“Ahed’s Knee” Nadav Lapid (Israel)

“Annette” Leos Carax (France)

“Benedetta” Paul Verhoeven (Netherlands)

“Bergman Island” Mia Hansen-Løve (France)

“Casablanca Beats” Nabil Ayouch (Morocco)

“Compartment No. 6” Juho Kuosmanen (Finland)

“The Divide” Catherine Corsini (France)

“Drive My Car” Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Japan)

“Everything Went Fine” Francois Ozon (France)

“Flag Day” Sean Penn (USA)

“France” Bruno Dumont (France)

“The French Dispatch” Wes Anderson (USA)

“A Hero” Asghar Farhadi (Iran)

“Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad)

“Memoria” Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand)

“Nitram” Justin Kurzel (Australia)

“Paris, 13th District” Jacques Audiard (France)

“Petrov’s Flu” Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia)

“Red Rocket” Sean Baker (USA)

“The Restless” Joachim Lafosse (Belgium)

“The Story of My Wife” Ildikó Enyedi (Hungary)

“Three Floors” Nanni Moretti (Italy)

“Titane” Julia Ducournau (France)

“The Worst Person in the World” Joachim Trier (Norway)

Full Official Selection Lineup here.