Cannes Critics’ Week Artistic Director Ava Cahen has unveiled the line-up for the 62nd edition of the parallel sidebar focused on first and second films, running May 17 to 25.
The compact selection will showcase 11 features, seven in Competition, and four as Special Screenings. Full details of the line-up can be found here. The short film line-up will be announced in the coming days.
This is Cahen’s second Selection as Artistic Director after a successful inaugural year in the role in 2022, topped by award-winning titles Aftersun, Alma Viva, Dalva and La Jauria.
Deadline talked to Cahen about the challenges of getting her second Selection over the line as well as some of the themes and trends to have emerged in the process.
DEADLINE: It’s your second Selection as Artistic Director after your well-received inaugural 2022 line-up. Did you find the process more difficult or easier this year?
AVA CAHEN: It was different, but not more difficult. Every year the counters are reset to zero. Everything depends on the productions we receive and the territories that send us films.
I was very happy with last year’s Selection and its reception, but you can’t rest on your laurels. We set off afresh again this year with the aim of doing even better.
The selection committee has also changed a bit which brought in different sets of critical eyes on the films and that has also had its influence on this year’s Selection.
DEADLINE: You received 1,000 feature submissions. Is that in line with last year? Could you draw any conclusions on the health of the international arthouse production scene from the submissions?
CAHEN: It’s in line with the average submissions. There were some territories that were particularly on form this year such as South-East Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand… It was a real pleasure exploring what was on offer there.
DEADLINE: Critics’ Week seems to have spread its net wide this year in terms of the realities explored in the selected films and their geographical diversity…
CAHEN: Critics’ Week has always been internationally facing. This year we fell in love with films coming from countries where filmmaking is more complicated. There is a real international flavor to the Competition with films from Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil, Serbia, Jordan and Belgium. It’s the first time, for example, that Critics’ Week has selected a Jordanian film (Inshallah A Boy) and if I’m not wrong, I think it might be the first time a Jordanian film has played anywhere in Cannes.
DEADLINE: It’s great to see that film in the Critics’ Week Selection. It has been a long time in the making…
CAHEN: I discovered the first images at the Atlas Workshops in Marrakech [in November 2022] where it was presented as a Work in Progress. The first 15 minutes caught my eye, and I met the director (Amjad Al Rasheed) and producer (Rula Nasser). It’s a project I’ve been following very attentively, and I’m dazzled by the final result.
For a first film, it’s striking for a director to achieve this level of mastery in terms of the mise-en-scène, the screenplay and the direction of the actors. It’s something that you normally see in great directors such as Asghar Farhadi. Amjad seizes the subject and masters it.
DEADLINE: Other Competition titles include Brazilian director Lillah Halla’s Power Boy about a young volleyball champion dealing with an unwanted pregnancy in the face of Brazil’s abortion ban. It’s striking that the director managed to get the film off the ground against the backdrop of the rule of former President and staunch anti-abortionist Jair Bolsonaro…
CAHEN: I think she made it happen through sheer force of character. The situation was politically, socially and ideologically extremely complex on all levels. We fell in love with this film too. It’s a battle cry for a woman’s right to an abortion today at a time when there are countries where women do not have control over their bodies and cannot voluntarily terminate their pregnancies. This film tackles the issue with a force and energy, through a queer prism, that swept us up. It’s been a long time since we fell in love with a Brazilian film in this way.
DEADLINE: The Korean Competition title Sleep co-starring Parasite actor Lee Sun-kyun star and Jung Yu-mi (Train To Busan), is also intriguing. How did you connect with that film?
CAHEN: It’s a film that was submitted to us and is accompanied by The Jokers (the Paris-based distribution and production house which handled the French release of Parasite). They put it under our noses and were right to. It’s an incredible film by the former assistant of Bong Joon-Ho, Jason Yu. It’s a dramatic comedy and horror about a couple, before the arrival of their first child. The mix of comedy and exorcist and ghost films is thrilling. In our exploration of cinema d’auteur at Critics’ Week we also like to take into consideration genre cinema, which is why we put in Sleep in Competition.
DEADLINE: The Opening film Ama Gloria revolves around the relationship between a motherless child and her nanny, which is disrupted when the latter returns home suddenly to Cap Vert. Following on from last year’s selections Aftersun and Alma Viva, the section seems to have a penchant for films exploring the childhood gaze…
CAHEN: I am very sensitive to the way the world is looked at by children. I think we can learn a lot from their gaze and point of view. There’s also the fact, that a lot of first films tell stories through the eyes of children and we also receive a lot of coming-of-age films.
This film distinguishes itself in that Marie Amachoukeli tells the story of the relationship between a six-year-old girl and her nanny. This type of representation is quite rare in French cinema.
It’s a film that tears at your heartstrings. It’s extremely well-acted and we were also struck by the finesse and delicacy of the mise-en-scène and the writing.
It’s the perfect opening film for this edition because it brings in a softer, tender note which will we need, because the Competition promises to shake up the audience this year.
DEADLINE: We’re living in politically tense times, both internationally and domestically around the world. On the face of it, the storylines of the selected films seem more focused on personal relationships than real-world events, apart from Serbian director Vladimir Perisič’s Lost Country, set against the backdrop of the student demonstrations against then-President Slobodan Milošević in 1996…
CAHEN: You’re right that the most frontally political film is Lost Country. It’s a tragedy. Perisič is a child of neorealism and when I saw this film, I immediately thought of Germany Year Zero. It was a real shock and, of course, there are echoes of what we are going through today in Europe and elsewhere, around student protests, rising political awareness and rejection of political corruption.
Tiger Stripes is also set in a socio-political context. It’s the story of a young girl who is suffering because of an ultra-strict society, marked by Islamic rigor and belief in the patriarchy. Power Alley explores abortion under the rule of Bolsonaro and all the difficulties connected to that. Inshallah A Boy follows the very modern journey of a woman through contemporary Jordanian society, who after losing her husband fights against bureaucracy and her brother-in-law in order to keep a roof over her head. The Belgian film Il Pleut Dans La Maison is a social drama, about the financial difficulties and emotional precariousness of a brother and sister. I won’t tell you all the details of Vincent Must Die, but the beginning of the film shows a society and world of work, that is chilling and petrifying. While Lost Country is the most openly political film, all of the films have political, if not militant, undertones.
DEADLINE: You are the second woman to hold the position of Artistic Director at Critics’ Week in its 62-year history. There are a lot of female-driven stories in this year’s line-up. Do you think the fact you are a woman influences the flavor of Selection?
CAHEN: What guides our choices is the films which we assess on an artistic basis. We will never choose a film on the basis of its subject matter. We’re interested in the form and how a filmmaker deals with the subject matter.
It’s true that in recent years there have been themes that I hold dear being tackled by filmmakers, both female and male, and I agree this year’s Critics’ Week is marked by themes, which are not ‘feminist’ but rather feminine.
There are films on maternity, but also paternity, such as the closing film No Love Lost; or the couple, in The (Exp)erience Of Love and Sleep. Both these films question how heterosexual couples can survive in the face of a world in which norms and paradigms are shifting. These are themes which everyone is interested in. But it’s the films and the way the subject matter is handled that caught our attention.
DEADLINE: This year six of the 11 selected films are directed by women. Is it the first time women-directed films are in the majority in the history of Critics’ Week?
CAHEN: Last year, we were at five female filmmakers and six male filmmakers. This year, because The (Exp)erience Of Love is co-directed by a woman and a man (Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni), we’ve achieved gender parity.
There again, we didn’t do this with some sort of quota in mind. We didn’t reflect on this as a political gesture. The line-up is made up of what we perceived as the best films and what swept us up. It’s exciting to see, however, that more and more first and second films are directed by women. They’re good films and that’s why we selected them.
DEADLINE: Critics’ Week is overseen by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. Film criticism plays an essential role in cinema but it is increasingly difficult to make a living as a critic, especially outside of France. Do you think critics are a species at risk of extinction or is there a future for the profession?
CAHEN: I hope so. We play a key role as “passeurs”. We transmit emotions, analysis and knowledge. Cinema critics connect films and spectators through their reviews, encouraging them to go to see a work through a good or intelligent assessment. I hope we’re still essential.
We have to keep the art of film criticism alive and that’s what Critics’ Week is about. I am pleased to see the section is now at its 62nd edition.
It could have gone the other way, given that film criticism as a profession is increasingly ill-paid and precarious. There are fewer and fewer critics in full-time, salaried jobs and more and more freelancers. But Critics’ Week is still standing after 62 years, that’s 62 years in which we brought together critical expertise and a passion for cinema and if it has lasted, that means that it makes sense.
DEADLINE: Happening director Audrey Diwan is president of the jury. What drew you to her for the role?
CAHEN: There are a billion reasons. Firstly, she is a filmmaker for whom I have infinite admiration. Happening is a film that moved me profoundly and I’ve watched it again and again. It is a masterclass that film students should all study for its precision, skills of adaptation, how to direct actors as well as the subject matter and its force.
Audrey is also an accomplished writer and screenwriter. We were talking about film critics and Audrey is also part of this corporation. She was a film critic and I found it a nice way to close the loop, by inviting her to preside over this jury and bring her back to where she began.
DEADLINE: Two films supported by Cannes Critics’ Week Next Step initiative helping filmmakers to make the leap from short to feature – Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex and Felipe Gálvez’s Los Colonos – have been snapped up by the festival for Official Selection. Is that frustrating? Were you hoping to show them in your Selection?
CAHEN: On the contrary. I work on the principle that the two films you mention are magnificent films and deserve to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival. I have a selection of just 11 films and I am obliged to be very selective in my choices. When a first or second film by a director revealed by Critics’ Weeks finds a place in Official Selection, like Julia Ducournau, who showed Raw in our section and then went into Competition with Titane, I am the first to do somersaults. I am always over the moon. What’s important is that these talents are in the right place, so their films can get the attention they deserve and shine. There are more and more first and second films in existence. Cannes is the biggest and most beautiful place to welcome these films while we continue our work of the past 62 years of discovering talent – it’s in our DNA. We play complementary roles.
DEADLINE: A bit of a cheeky question. When you were appointed Artistic Director of Critics’ Week in 2021, you were the youngest person ever to take up the role at just 36 years old. You still have a long career road ahead of you. Could you envisage yourself one day overseeing the Official Selection?
CAHEN: Oh la la [laughs]. I love being at Critics’ Week. What is so marvellous about Critics’ Week, is that it brings you into close contact with first and second films and young auteurs. You can’t imagine what a privilege it is and I am happy to be here for now. What I envisage rather is a third year here. [Cannes Delegate General] Thierry Frémaux does an amazing job. We talked a lot this year about the films and the relationship between the festival and Critics’ Week is very, very good.