2025 Cannes Film Festival: a long -awaited opening
A few hours before the opening ceremony of the 78th Cannes Festival, Juliette Binoche, president of the jury, appeared at 2:30 p.m. in front of a crowded press room. Alongside the president, radiant in sun yellow, the eight members of this very international jury seemed as concentrated as it is. Two questions of a burning news won during this meeting with journalists around the world.
Meanwhile, on the Croisette, festival-goers are preparing to discover, on Wednesday morning, the feature films in competition. This year 2025, 22 films are in the running for the Palme d’Or, six of which made by women. The works of the American Wes Anderson, the Belgians Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Spanish Carla Simon or the French Dominik Moll and Cédric Klapisch animate the conversations, even before having been projected. But one of the most anticipated films is New wave of the American Richard Linklater. A work carried out “in the mind of Godard”, according to the filmmaker.
Parallel selections: Cannes faithful to its opening and freedom mission
On the sidelines of the competition, the parallel selections are also very promising and offer a program that is still as eclectic, where independent cinema holds a good place. “The festival was born in 1939 from the desire to offer filmmakers around the world and their films a land of welcome. (…) At a time when the temptation of withdrawal has never been so great, this message of openness and hope is fundamental, “said Iris KnoBloch, president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, her general delegate, during the announcement of the official selection last April, thus reaffirming his historical mission.
Because yes, this is a reality of the festival: this year again, filmmakers from countries where freedom of expression is not respected will find in Cannes a beautiful space of reception of their works, such as Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi (A simple accident) and Saeed Roustaee (Woman and Child), Two survivors of the prisons in their countries. In the parallel section (ACID), the filmmaker Sepideh Farsi will come to present her documentary Put your soul on your hand and walk, Including the heroine, the photojournalist Gazaouie Fatma Hassona, has just perished under the Israeli bombs. Welcome to the Cannes Film Festival, where fiction and reality never stop meeting.
Juliette Binoche interviewed on the news
Questioned by a German journalist on the conviction of the “sacred monster” Gérard Depardieu, Tuesday May 13, 2025, at eighteen months in prison sentence for sexual assault, Juliette Binoche replied: “The Monster and Sacred Association has always embarrassed me. Because, first of all, it is not a monster, it is a man who was desecrated by facts that have passed under justice. (…) A movie star is a man. A king is a man. A president is a man. The sacred is the moment when something happens when you create, when you play, when you stage. The sacred does not belong to us. When you are desecrated as it is right now, it makes you think about the power that some people have. I think the real power is elsewhere. »»
A few minutes from the end of the conference, Juliette Binoche was arrested on her refusal to participate in a tribune of support for the Gaza Strip population, signed this morning by 400 artists and personalities of the cinema, including the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar or the American actors Susan Sarandon and Richard Gere. “You may understand why, but later,” the actress reacted. Will this subject be addressed at another moment of the festival? The next few days will tell us.
