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Sylvain Chomet, the great French animation filmmaker, started his movie career with a short called The Old Lady and the Pigeons, which won a BAFTA and the Grand Prize at the 1997 Annecy Animation Film Festival and got an Oscar nomination. He followed that up in 2003 with two more Oscar nominations including Best Animated Feature for his first full-length film, the wildly inventive The Triplets of Belleville, and in 2010 with another acclaimed animated feature The Illusionist, which was based on an unproduced 1956 Jacques Tati script and featured an animated version of Tati in an emotional story about his relationship with his estranged older daughter. It brought him a fourth Oscar nomination.

Chomet has dabbled in live action as well, but only recently returned to animation, notably last year’s five-minute preface to Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux. Even if the film itself was critically maligned, Chomet’s clever and richly animated opening was much admired.

Mediawan Kids & Family has announced a new reboot of beloved 1970s UK kids show The Magic Roundabout as well as an animated series from Paul Whitehouse at its annual presentation at the Annecy International Film Festival’s Mifa market.

Produced by Mediawan Kids & Family’s UK Wildseed label, The Magic Roundabout reboot is being written by Horrible Histories and Dangerous Mouse writer Ben Ward. Wild Seeds is planning 52, seven-minute episodes for the show which is currently at the financing stage.

The Bristol-based company is also working on a new mixed media show from Fast Show actor, comedian and writer Paul Whitehouse entitled Collide-Oscope.

Aimed at the six-plus demographic, the 30×7 show will consist of sketches mixing animation, collage-art and live action.

It will touch on a range of zany topics, with examples given of what to expect including argumentative fruit in a bowl; an accident prone rookie TV reporter; Mr...

You could say that Marcel Pagnol’s movies are defined by the faces he cast, none more distinctive than that of Raimu, a music-hall legend turned big-screen star whom Orson Welles called “the greatest actor in the world.” As it happens, “The Triplets of Belleville” director Sylvain Chomet’s films are also marked by faces, which the French animator sketches by hand in a loving but labor-intensive process that reflects the previous century every bit as much as Pagnol’s best-loved novels (“Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring”) and plays.

What a beautiful marriage of artist and author “A Magnificent Life” should be, right? That’s only partly true, alas. Drawing from Pagnol’s career-encapsulating essay collection, “Confidences,” Chomet honors the man’s achievements — the way a dry textbook or pedagogic graphic novel might — but fails to convey why those who don’t already possess some level of fascination with Pagnol should care.

When people ask me what my favorite film festival is, I know what they expect to hear: something upscale and exclusive, like Venice or Cannes, with their red carpet premieres and interminable standing ovations, where the winning filmmaker goes home with a golden something-or-other, be it a lion, a bear or the Palme d’Or.

What they don’t expect to hear is that the top stop on my travel calendar is, in fact, Annecy, which isn’t a traditional film festival at all, but more of a cross between Comic-Con and Cannes, dedicated entirely to animation.

Personally, I believe that animation is the purest form of cinema there is. Unlike the vast majority of filmmaking, where you point a camera at something that exists — what we think of as “live action” — with animation, you start with a blank page (or screen), and everything that appears on it must be drawn,...

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival kicks-off this weekend with a masterclass by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, who will also receive a career award alongside The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and UK animation director Joanna Quinn at the opening ceremony.

It marks The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Gondry’s first trip to the lakeside event, billed as the biggest animation festival in the world, although his work Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?:An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky played at the festival in 2014, winning the best French film prize.

“Michel is exactly like Terry Gilliam,” says the festival’s artistic director Marcel Jean, referring to Annecy’s 2024 guest of honor. “He comes from the world of animation. That’s where he started. We’ve wanted to invite him for a long time and the planets have aligned.”

Jean notes that Gondry’s visit also coincides...

Mediawan Kids & Family, the youth content arm of the European powerhouse that owns Plan B, See-Saw Films and Chapter 2, has struck a deal with Claynosaurz Inc., the company behind the viral Nft brand. Together, they’ll co-produce an animated series based on the digital-native franchise.

The series, running 39 episodes of seven minutes each, underscores the strategy deployed by Mediawan Kids & Family to partner up with up-and-coming talent from the creator economy and develop original transmedia projects.

Aimed at children aged 6 to 12, the comedy-filled series will follow the adventures of four dinosaur friends on a mysterious island. Jesse Cleverly, the award-winning co-founder and creative director of Mediawan-owned, Bristol-based banner Wildseed Studios, is on board as showrunner.

Claynosaurz, created in 2021 by Nicholas Cabana, Dan Cabral and Daniel Jervis has already garnered over 450 million views and 200 million impressions across digital platforms, as well as an online community of over 530,000 subscribers with its humorous short videos.

It’s common for a successful artist to be asked about advice they’d give their younger self; one film from this year’s Cannes Specials selection does the opposite. In Sylvain Chomet’s animation A Magnificent Life, French playwright, filmmaker, and inventor Marcel Pagnol is 61 years old and very close to giving up on his career, so a younger Marcel comes to the rescue. When asked to write a memoir column for Elle magazine, Pagnol simply can’t do it––not without the help of hope and optimism personified in the figure of young Marcel.

Chomet has brought us two of the 21st century’s significant animations, The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist––both stylistically and narratively daring enough to build anticipation for this biopic celebrating a beloved French auteur. While the initial idea was for Chomet to make a straightforward documentary, animated sequences that stood in for...

It’s almost a wrap, folks! The Cannes Film Festival is drawing to a close for another year. Jesse Whittock with you again to run through the second week headlines from the Croisette and further afield. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Cannes Closer

Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

Over to Zac Ntim in Cannes… Nearly there: The frontrunners for this year’s Palme d’Or, which is to say, the films critics are buzzing about most, are Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Secret Agent, and Sound of Falling, the second film from Mascha Schilinski. All three are excellent films of gigantic emotional and philosophical scope. My money is on Trier’s film, which is the most complete competition title I saw in Cannes, and its no wonder it achieved a gargantuan 19-minute ovation. Notably, all three films have distribution deals with Mubi. The streamer is...

Exclusive: Sola Media has sealed a raft of deals at on Twisted, U.S. animator Lino Disalvo’s upcoming animated feature for Mediawan Kids & Family.

The film has sold to the Baltics (Acme), Cis (Mjm Group), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF), Greece (Tanweer), Israel (Red Cape), Latin America (Imagem), Middle East (Selim Ramia), Mongolia (The Filmbridge), Poland (Kino Swiat), Portugal (Cinemundo), Spain (Flins y Pinículas), Turkey (Bir Film) and Ukraine (Green Light).

Directed by Frozen Head of Animation Disalvo, the animation is billed as one of the biggest animated features currently in production in France.

Delivery is slated for Q1 2027. French distributor Le Pacte is on board, alongside France 3 Cinéma and Paramount+ France.

Set in a picturesque alpine village in Italy, Twisted follows Angelina, a teenager who inadvertently disrupts her town’s beloved festival and unleashes a wave of mischievous magical creatures—each one born from a lie she tells to cover her tracks.

To try to capture the life and times of Marcel Pagnol in a crisp one hour and a half must have seemed a daunting task but animator Sylvain Chomet has accomplished it with skilful distinction.

For his latest foray into animation after The Illusionist in 2010 and Belleville Rendez-vous in 2003, Chomet has crafted a loving and mellow portrait of one of France’s most revered creators whether in literature, theatre, and cinema as well as his hobby as an inventor.

It is framed in flashback, starting in 1956 Paris where Pagnol, then 61, feels his work has become unfashionable and he’s looking to pursue his thirst for invention by creating a perpetual motion machine.

The editor of a magazine asks him to write a memoir although he’s not convinced that he is capable of remembering all the details. Enter Pagnol’s younger self to spur his memory and we’re off with his tentative.

A Magnificent Life (Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol), a biopic of French playwright-filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, clearly represents a labor of love for writer-director Sylvain Chomet. His first animated feature since 2010’s The Illusionist, it features the gorgeous style first showcased in 2003’s award-winning The Triplets of Belleville. If its storytelling proves more rudimentary, hewing closely to the stylistic formula endemic to the genre, the ample visual pleasures prove their own reward. Premiering at Cannes, the film should find appreciative audiences in its native France, where its subject is best known.

The story, told in flashback, begins in 1956 Paris, where the 61-year-old Pagnol (voiced by Matthew Gravelle in the English-language version) is despairing that his work has gone out of fashion. Although he intends to give up writing to pursue his hobby of inventing (he’s working on a perpetual-motion machine), he’s asked by a magazine editor to pen a memoir.

Early on in beloved animation director Sylvain Chomet’s “A Magnificent Life” (French title “Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol”), septuagenarian Monsieur Pagnol laments that to write a memoir, one needs memories, but those he has none of any more. Lo and behold, a jaunty young boy, Marcel, soon comes to him.

To have an avatar of your childhood self arrive in timely fashion to resuscitate your fading belief in the brilliance of your internationally applauded, multi-hyphenate career, is a master projection of the ego. It’s the kind of attestation that acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, for instance, wouldn’t frown upon, given that his 1998 film, “After Life” (translated in Japanese as “Wonderful Life”) is about dead characters arriving at a way station to collaborate with its staff in creating a short film of their single most cherished memory before they pass on. Kore-eda’s characters don’t know yet that...

Chomet was determined to reveal 'the human guy … the man who became Marcel Pagnol, rather than the figure of legend'

Marcel Pagnol, an iconic cultural figure in France through literature, theatre and films, maintained “the spirt of a child” throughout his life, driven by an inquisitive passion, curiosity and a tendency to be a control freak. He shares some of these traits with animation auteur Sylvain Chomet who is also taking a child-like glee in his latest project A Magnificent Life - an animated version of the life of Marseille’s favourite son which has just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Sitting in the cool shade of a white tent atop the Palais des Festivals with views over the sparkling bay Chomet looks in his element, basking in positive critical feedback such as “Chomet celebrates French literary giant Marcel Pagnol in enchanting style” (Time Out) to “A gorgeous, decidedly...

Late afternoon light filters through a sparsely attended Parisian theatre as an elderly Marcel Pagnol, pen in hand, hesitates before a blank page—only to be nudged onward by the mischievous grin of his childhood self. That moment sets the tone for Sylvain Chomet’s animated biopic, in which the celebrated playwright-turned-filmmaker revisits his life through the eyes of both age and youth.

Chomet, best known for his gentle affection in Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist, here offers a tender homage to one of France’s literary giants, tracing Pagnol from the sunbaked hills of Provence to the pre-war cafés of Paris.

The film marries hand-drawn linework with watercolor atmospheres, moving between the gray cobblestones of the city and the golden fields of home. We meet Pagnol at a crossroads: his latest play has stalled and he’s agreed, almost reluctantly, to serialize his memoirs for a fashion magazine.

For French animation auteur Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville, The Illusionist), storytelling has always lived in the space between silence and song. “Most of my work so far has been silent movies, I didn’t really do much with dialogue,” he says.

But for his latest project — A Magnificent Life, a fully animated biopic of pioneering French screenwriter and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, which Sony Pictures Classics will release stateside — Chomet brings one of cinema’s great voices back to life.

Pagnol revolutionized film dialogue, bringing literary sophistication and realism to the screen at a time, in the early sound era, when producers feared the spoken word. He also brought regional realism, having his actors speak in the broad Marseilles dialect of his hometown, unheard of at the time. Pagnol transformed the style of European cinema by taking the camera outdoors, inspiring Italian neorealism and the Nouvelle Vague. His proposal...

Exclusive: Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Max Walker-Silverman’s Rebuilding starring Josh O’Connor, Lily Latorre, Maghann Fahy, Kali Reis and Amy Madigan.

The Sundance 2025 premiere follows a cowboy living in emergency accommodation after losing his ranch to wildfires, who reconciles with his ex-wife and estranged daughter.

Picturehouse will announce a release date in due course; mk2 handles international sales.

The film is produced by Jesse Hope, Dan Janvey and Paul Mezey. Executive Producers are Jan McAdoo, Jack McAdoo, Robina Riccitiello, Josh Peters, Sakurako Fisher, Douglas Choi, Alex C. Lo, Philipp Engelhorn, Bill Way, Elliott Whitton, Andrew Goldman and O’Connor.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 8-14), the world’s oldest and most prestigious animation festival, announced this year’s lineup, both in and out of competition, American studio presentations, special celebrations (including a tribute to Hungarian animation), and honorary awards.

This year’s highlights include Sylvain Chomet’s highly-anticipated 2D Marcel Pagnol biopic, “A Magnificent Life,” which will be a part of the official competition and released domestically this year through Sony Pictures Classics; sneaks of Andy Serkis’ “Animal Farm” and Genndy Tartakovsky’s R-rated, 2D “Fixed” (streaming on Netflix); and special previews of Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” Pixar’s “Elio,” DreamWorks’ “The Bad Guys 2,” Sony Picture Animation’s “Goat,” Paramount Animation’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants,” and Netflix’s “In Your Dreams.”

Meanwhile, Annecy 2025 introduces a new short film program, Midnight Shorts, and launches the Annecy Dome, a new 32-seat venue for immersive works.

The Annecy International Animation Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 2025 edition, running from June 8 to 14. (scroll down for full list of Official Selection titles)

Having previously announced Michel Gondry as an honorary guest, the festival will also celebrate UK Oscar nominee Joanna Quinn (Affairs of the Art) and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening with honorary Cristal awards.

Twenty-one feature films will be showcased in the festival’s Main Competition and Contrechamp Competition, selected from 130 submissions.

Main competition titles include Sylvain Chomet’s Marcel Pagnol tribute A Magnificent Life as well as Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s Death Does Not Exist, and Dandelion’s Odyssey by Momoko Seto, and Ugo Bienvenu’s Arco.

In a break with tradition, the opening night will world premiere a selection of five shorts rather than a single feature animation.

“After a historic 2024 edition, with a record attendance of 17,400 badge-holders, and all this despite a difficult context for the industry,...

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the world’s most important week in global animatioon, returns to the French Alps this June 9-15, hosting visionary directors, groundbreaking films and a burgeoning number of established and emerging studios and voices from around the world.

This year’s edition is one of the most ambitious yet, marked by a rich blend of themes, powerful political storytelling and a notable emphasis on independent animation. As fest art director Marcel Jean notes, “The quality of independent animation has increased in a most spectacular way,” which is evident across this year’s programming, particularly in the Official Competition and Contrechamp Feature categories.

Below, the 10 features selected in both the Official and Contrechamp sections and a quote from Jean explaining why they were picked, followed by several highlights from today’s announcements. The festival’s popular Work in Progress lineup was unveiled earlier this month.

2025 Feature...

Annecy, the world’s leading animation film festival, unveiled its official program on Wednesday, with a line-up that includes features from some 20 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas and a range of styles, from the big-budget 3D computer animated feature Into the Mortal World from Chinese director Zhong Ding; to the hand-drawn title Balentes by Italian filmmaker Giovanni Columbu, and the digital cut out animation of Mexican filmmaker Aria Covamonas: The Great History of Western Philosophy.

Covamonas’ debut premiered at the Rotterdam festival, and Annecy’s 2025 lineup features a best-of selection of recent fests, including Berlinale highlights Lesbian Space Princess and Tales from the Magic Garden, and several features premiering in Cannes next month, including The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol from The Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet; Dandelion’s Odyssey from Japanese director Momoko Seto; and Death Does Not Exist from Canadian filmmaker Felix Dufour-Laperrière.

‘Lesbian Space...

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival is nearly here. The annual film festival and market takes place from June 8 to June 14, in a gorgeous town that served as the inspiration for Belle’s village in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”. This year’s slate is overflowing with must-see screenings and panels.

Among the special screenings this year are Andy Serkis’ long-awaited take on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” Michel Gondry’s “Maya, Give Me Another Title” (he’ll also be receiving an Honorary Cristal Award this year “in recognition of his exceptional contribution to the vitality of animation”), Genndy Tartakovsky’s R-rated “Fixed” and “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants,” the new feature from Paramount Animation. Additionally, Pixar will screen their new feature “Elio.”

There will be exciting presentations from Disney, who will reveal a first-look at footage from “Zootopia 2,” courtesy of director (and Walt Disney Animation Studios Cco) Jared Bush,...

France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 8-14) will preview upcoming animations including Zootopia 2, Animal Farm and the Stranger Things animated series as part of its 2025 lineup.

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, director Michel Gondry andacclaimed UK animator Joanna Quinn will receive honorary Cristal awards.

Gondry will present his Berlinale 2025 title Maya, Give Me a Title as a special screening.

Scroll down for the full list of competition films, screening events and studio showcases

Also attending are Andy Serkis for what the festival described as a ‘special premiere’ of his animated feature adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm,...

The Cannes Film Festival 2025 line-up reveals the films that likely will be chatted about long through the year. Here’s what’s showing.

Cannes Film Festival has published its official line-up for this year’s event, and we get our first hint at the films that are set to be part of the awards conversation for the coming months. The festival will be screening several interesting films, including the directorial debuts of Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson in the new filmmaker category.

Screening out of competition will be Spike Lee’s latest offering, Highest 2 Lowest, and Tom Cruise and company are taking Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning to the festival too. This has proved to be a public relations misstep in the past (remember Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny?) but with Mission releasing so soon after the festival, this seems like a savvy move to us.

The full list of films that will be screening at the 78th Annual Cannes Film Festival has been released. The line-up was announced this morning by the Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and President Iris Knobloch at a press conference in Paris. The Hollywood Reporter has shared the program listing for this year’s event. While there are a number of anticipated high-profile titles, a bevy of auteurs will be showcasing their latest, including Kelly Reichardt, who will be returning to the competition with The Mastermind. The film is an art-heist drama and stars Josh O’Connor and John Magaro, which takes place during the Vietnam War.

Joachim Trier, the Norwegian filmmaker who made a splash in 2021 with The Worst Person of the World, returns with the new film Sentimental Value, which features Renate Reinsve. Julia Ducournau, the director of the surreal film, Titane, which got her a Palme d’Or...

The Cannes Film Festival has released the official selection for its 78th edition, featuring a mix of returning auteurs and first-time filmmakers. Scheduled to run from May 13 to 24, this year’s lineup includes world premieres from directors such as Wes Anderson, Julia Ducournau, Ari Aster, and Richard Linklater.

Announced by festival delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch during a press conference in Paris, the lineup spans the main competition, Un Certain Regard, and various sidebars. French actor and Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche will serve as jury president. The rest of the jury remains unannounced.

Among the films selected for competition is Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, debuting shortly before its theatrical release. Ari Aster returns with Eddington, a Western-inflected film distributed by A24. Linklater brings Nouvelle Vague, focused on the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. Ducournau’s Alpha is set in the 1980s and centers on...

The guessing game around which films could make the lineup for the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 13—24, came to an end this morning at a press conference in Paris by Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch. If you tapped the latest works by Ari Aster (Eddington), Kelly Reichardt (The Mastermind), Richard Linklater (Nouvelle Vague), Wes anderson (The Phoenician Scheme), and the Dardenne brothers (Young Mothers) to make the cut, then you were correct.

Neon, which is on a five-year winning streak of Palme d’Or winners, two of which went on to win best picture at the Oscars (Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Sean Baker’s Anora), will try to make it a sixth with, for now, either of the two films it already has in its stable: Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and Julie Ducournau’s Alpha.

Absent from the...

With new high profile titles from the likes of Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Dominik Moll, Julia Ducournau, Sylvain Chomet, Kelly Reichardt and many more this year’s Cannes Film Festival is shaping up to be a bumper crop as familiar names mingle with comparative unknowns.

As already announced Tom Cruise will be back on the Croisette with Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, while Robert De Niro is line for an honorary Palme d’Or at the 78th edition.

The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol will join the special screenings Photo: Festival de Cannes

Festival director Thierry Fremaux, who unveiled the selection at a media gathering in Paris alongside president Iris Knobloch, revealed that the festival received a record number of 2909 submissions. The selection is dedicated to the Belgian actress Emilie Dequenne who recently passed away at the age of 43.

Among the attention-grabbers will be Richard...

The Cannes Film Festival announced its 2025 lineup on Thursday morning. Several expected contenders are set for world premieres on the French Riviera, including new projects from Scarlett Johansson, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, Kelly Reichardt, Joachim Trier, and more.

Among the titles that will premiere at Cannes this year are Eleanor the Great, Johansson’s directorial debut with a lead role for June Squibb; Nouvelle Vague, Linklater’s tribute to the French New Wave and the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless; The Mastermind, Reichardt’s latest about an art-world heist with roles for Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, and John Magaro; Splitsville (directed by Michael Angelo Covino), a Neon release with Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona; and Sentimental Value, Triet’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World with Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Elle Fanning in the cast.

Other films of note include Alpha (Cannes winner Julia Ducournau...

The Official Selection for the 78th Cannes Film Festival was revealed Thursday, with 19 movies in Competition. See full lists below.

Familiar names who will launch new works in the Competition include Wes Anderson, who brings his latest flick The Phoenician Scheme; Richard Linklater will launch his Paris-shot Nouvelle Vague; Jochim Trier debuts his latest feature Sentimental Value; and Titane Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau returns with Alpha.

Cannes will open this year with Leave One Day by first-time French filmmaker Amelie Bonnin. Thierry Frémaux said during his presser this morning that it was the first time a debut film has been selected to open the festival. Also hitting the Croisette for the first time is horror auteur Ari Aster, who returns to feature filmmaking with his buzzy A24 feature Eddington.

Related: Thierry Frémaux Talks ‘Mission: Impossible’; Star Presence; Hollywood Introspection & Oscar Track Record

Elsewhere, American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt will...

Ahead of the 78th Cannes Film Festival, taking place May 13 to 24, the lineup has now been unveiled. Iris Knobloch, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, have revealed the slate this morning.

Highlights include Ari Aster’s Eddington, Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Joachim Trier’s Sentimal Value, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident, Carla Simon’s Romeria, and more. In other sections we have Rebecca Zlotowski’s Vie Privée, the directorial debuts of Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson, Michael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville, Sebastián Lelio’s The Wave, Sylvain Chomet’s The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, and more.

See below.

In Competition

After (Oliver Laxe)

Alpha (Julia Ducournau)

The Eagles of the Republic (Tarik Saleh)

Eddington (Ari Aster)

Dossier 137 (Dominik Moll...

The Cannes Film Festival is unveiling the line-up for its 78th edition this morning (April 10), starting at 11am local time (10am BST).

Festival director Thierry Frémaux is revealing the Official Selection at a press conference at the Ugc Montparnasse cinema in Paris alongside festival president Iris Knobloch.

Screen will update this story with the titles when they are announced. Refresh the page for latest updates.

As previously announced, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning will premiere out of competition. No other titles have been confirmed so far.

The presentation isbeing live-streamed above.

Juliette Binoche willpreside over the jury. Robert De Niro...

It’s another year of high-profile animated sequels, led by Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” DreamWorks’ “The Bad Guys 2,” and Nickelodeon/Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Square Pants,” and the “Smurfs” film.

But there are plenty of attention-grabbing non-sequels in 2025: “Pixar’s intergalactic “Elio,” DreamWorks’ “Dog Man,” Neon’s French “Arco,” Sony Pictures Classics’ “A Magnificent Life,” Sylvain Chomet’s biopic about French author-filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, and Sony Picture’s “Scarlet,” the latest anime from Mamoru Hosoda (“Belle”).

In addition, Netflix delivers another diverse slate: “In Your Dreams,” “KPop Demon Hunters” (with Sony Pictures), Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2D adult comedy, “Fixed,” “Lost in Starlight” (the streamer’s first Korean-language animated film), “Plankton: The Movie” (with Nickelodeon), and “The Twits” adapted from Roald Dahl.

Also, there are three Oscar-qualifying holdovers from 2024: “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” “The Colors Within,” and “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.

The late David Lynch was and is renowned for his surrealist horror. Many of his works remain unrivaled to this day, and fans are always eager for more. And it’s now hard to see why his films are so beloved. They scratch that deep, morbid itch to be both entertained and viscerally disturbed. Unfortunately, there are only so many David Lynch works. Eventually, fans will run out of content. But there’s still hope; plenty of directors have learned from the surrealist master, and the Lynchian subgenre has blossomed.

Among these works is a French short by Sylvain Chomet, La Vieille Dame Et Les Pigeons (The Old Lady and the Pigeons), that should be bumped to the top of any Lynchian connoisseur’s must-watch list. Despite its brief length, Chomet’s short has all the hallmarks of a perfect Lynchian mind-bender. Its carefully crafted visuals straddle the line between beauty and ugliness.

France was one of the first countries to require streamers to invest in the local film and TV production sector. Three years on, its impact is being felt.

A comprehensive study from the Cnc and French audiovisual regulatory authority Arcom published in late November revealed the impact of the introduction of the European Union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Avmsd) in France on the country’s film and TV sector.

The Avmsd requires the US streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual turnover in local film and TV. According to the report, it has given the French industry a nearly $1.05bn (€1bn) financial boost.

France was one of the first countries to require streamers to invest in the local film and TV production sector. Three years on, its impact is being felt.

A comprehensive study from the Cnc and French audiovisual regulatory authority Arcom published in late November revealed the impact of the introduction of the European Union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Avmsd) in France on the country’s film and TV sector. The Avmsd requires the US streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual turnover in local film and TV. According to the report, it has given the French industry a near $1.05bn (€1bn) financial boost.

The Illusionist is a miraculous work of art that succeeds, through the magic of animation, in resurrecting the essence of legendary French mime and film auteur Jacques Tati. The film is a charming and beautiful 2010 Oscar-nominated 79-minute-long animated feature by acclaimed French animator Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville), a long-time admirer and disciple of Tati. The film is based on an un-produced script by Tati who is best known for his four silent Monsieur Hulot comedies made from 1953 to 1971 silent, because they were mimed. Hulot, a Charlie Chaplin-inspired character portrayed by Tati is a friendly but befuddled tourist character with his trademark raincoat, umbrella, hat, and ever-present pipe, perpetually caught off guard in the busy modern world.

Since the success of “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train,” which grossed nearly $50 million domestically in 2021, it’s been clear that anime will continue to be a major player at the specialty box office for years to come. Now, with Toho International’s acquisition of one of the medium’s top American distributors, Gkids, competition for the eyes and dollars of anime fans is about to step up.

It’s a natural fit for the two companies to be joining forces. Last December, Toho and GKids made box office history by pushing two Japanese-produced films into the top 3 at the U.S. box office on the same weekend. For Toho, it was “Godzilla Minus One,” the first ever film from cinema’s oldest franchise to win an Oscar, earning $56.4 million in America.

For GKids, it was Hayao Miyazaki’s likely final film — and also Oscar winner — “The Boy and the Heron,” which...

A folie a deux is defined as a shared delusion between two people in close association. So maybe the idea that the “Joker” sequel would perform as well as its predecessor was always meant to be suspect.

Over the weekend, “Joker: Folie a Deux” crashed with audiences after finding little support among critics. The Todd Phillips musical drama about the famed Batman villain earned less than $37.8 million at the domestic box office, a far cry from the record-setting $96 million with which the original debuted in 2019. That film grossed a then-record $1.079 billion worldwide, the most money ever for an R-rated release at the time. Now, the expectations are that “Joker: Folie a Deux” might not top $300 million. The project earned a D-grade from ticket buyers on CinemaScore, a service that polls moviegoers about their theatrical experience. Critics, many of whom thought the first film was subpar, eviscerated the sequel too — the...

"I'm already proud of you, Marcel." Sony Pictures Classics has revealed the first teaser trailer for a French animated film called Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, the latest creation from Sylvain Chomet. You already know his other films - The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist. This is his latest feature since Attila Marcel in 2013. He also directed the animated short at the start of Joker: Folie à Deux about his shadow. His new film follows the life of Marcel Pagnol, a playwright, novelist, and a filmmaker who became one of the world's most inventive & prolific artists in the mid-20th century. Based on Pagnol's book, examining his entire life from childhood through his successful career in France and beyond. No US release date is set - expected in early 2025. This teaser features an English-language voice cast with what sounds like Tom Hiddleston as the voice of Marcel, though they...

While his work was recently seen worldwide with crafting the opening animated sequence of Joker: Folie à Deux, Sylvain Chomet is also hard at work on his next feature. Set to arrive in 2025, a long 15 years after his previous feature The Illusionist, The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol follows the life of the acclaimed playwright and filmmaker. Ahead of next year’s release, Sony Pictures Classics has now released the first teaser for the latest work from The Triplets of Belleville director.

Here’s the synopsis: “In 1955, 60-year-old Marcel Pagnol is a well-known and acclaimed playwright and filmmaker. When the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine commissions a weekly column about Pagnol’s childhood, he sees this as a great opportunity to go back to his artistic roots: writing. Realizing his memory is failing him and deeply affected by the disappointing results of his last two plays, Pagnol starts doubting his ability to pursue his work.

Love is in the air for Joaquin Phoenix’s clown prince of chaos in this bold but indulgent comic book musical – lifted by Gaga’s weapons-grade charisma

Is Todd Phillips trolling us? For the sequel to his divisive but wildly successful double Oscar-winning 2019 picture, Phillips tears up the formula. The gritty panache of Joker’s “making of a murderer” narrative and the subsequent extravagantly violent crime spree is replaced by two hours and 20 minutes of a musical romance/courtroom drama mashup. Oh, and there’s also a Looney Tunes-style animated prologue created by The Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet. The influences of the first film – few movies have borrowed so obviously and profligately from Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy – are largely discarded. Joker: Folie à Deux, which features Lady Gaga alongside returning star Joaquin Phoenix, draws instead from pictures such as Francis Ford Coppola’s One From the Heart...

There’s a lot of promise in the idea of a musical starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga playing the Joker and Harley Quinn, especially in the latter being portrayed as the ultimate unstable fangirl, and giving Arthur Fleck something to hope for as he goes on trial for the murders committed in Joker. Imagine what John Waters or Paul Thomas Anderson would do with that premise. Hell, we don’t even have to imagine an animated take, as Joker: Folie à Deux’s one true masterstroke of sinister, madcap joy is starting with a short recap of Arthur Fleck’s story created by The Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet.

When that short is over, though, we get the Todd Phillips version, which is largely anchored to stone-faced reality for 130-plus excruciatingly withholding minutes. In grappling with the implications of its story, Folie à Deux’s every attempt at showcasing cleverness,...

“Folie à deux” means a kind of shared madness — possibly two extreme hearts on similar wavelength or maybe a clash inside one disturbed person’s head. When Arthur Fleck aka Joker meets Harleen “Lee” Quinel aka Harley Quinn in director/co-writer Todd Phillips’ audacious and head-spinning follow-up to his billion-dollar-grossing 2019 origin story, Joker: Folie à Deux is maybe all of that.

The first trailer for this new film, which could be called a musical but really is so much more than that one hook, used the underlying theme of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” and perhaps that ultimately is what Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver are trying to say. This meeting of the minds between Arthur (Joaquin Phoenix) and Lee (Lady Gaga) is indeed an odd love story in a world losing control.

An early inspiration for the filmmaker and his star,...

Joker: Folie à Deux to Open with Looney Tunes-Inspired Animated Sequence - Main Image

The highly-anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux is going animated on its opening sequence with a Looney Tunes-inspired sequence.

Fans have been looking forward to the upcoming film as it will bring back Joaquin Phoenix to reprise his Oscar-winning role and he will be joined by Lady Gaga, who is set to portray Harley Quinn.

The trailers they released so far have revealed that the sequel will take a different route as it would feature musical elements. As it turns out, it will also tackle another style as it kicks off Arthur Fleck's next journey.

Joker 2 Opening Sequence Will Be Inspired by Looney Tunes

In a recent profile of Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips, it was revealed that the sequel will feature an animated opening sequence.

The film will begin with...

Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie Deux will not open with a big dramatic sequence like the first movie, or even a song and dance number like the trailers have suggested. Instead, the sequel opens with an animated Joker cartoon, setting the tone for the wild ride ahead. Following the massive box office success of 2019's Joker, which earned 11 Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actor win for Joaquin Phoenix, expectations are high for the sequel. Joker was praised for being different from other comic book adaptations, and it looks like Joker: Folie Deux wants to shock audiences again with an opening sequence they likely aren't expecting.

Todd Phillips spoke with Variety about the upcoming DC sequel and revealed that Joker: Folie Deux has a drastically different opening than the previous film. The film apparently kicks off with an animated sequence drawn by Sylvain Chomet, French comic writer and director of the...

If you think the idea of making Joker: Folie à Deux a musical is a bizarre choice, wait until you hear what Todd Phillips has in mind for the film’s opening. In addition to featuring musical elements, Phillips plans to open the highly-anticipated sequel with a Looney Tunes-inspired animated sequence.

Before you freak out, know that Phillips recruited top-tier talent for this bold choice. The legendary French artist and animator Sylvain Chomet helped Phillips create the animated sequence. If Chomet’s name sounds familiar, he’s the director of 2003’s The Triplets of Belleville and 2010’s The Illusionist, two positively brilliant and award-winning animated features.

In addition to Chomet’s animated sequence, Joker: Folie à Deux includes a “variety show sequence” with Joker and Harley presenting a Sonny and Cher-like dynamic. These elements are part of Todd Phillips’ radical approach to Joker: Folie à Deux, a sequel to 2019’s box office-breaking Joker.

A quick perusal of social media shows some fans are still processing the idea that Joker: Folie à Deux, a sequel to Todd Phillips’ billion-dollar-grossing favorite of edgelords everywhere, is going to be a musical. The marketing is being a little coy about it, too, with only snippets of Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck humming a few bars of Burt Bacharach to himself, or Lady Gaga’s Harleen Quinzel playfully quoting Judy Garland’s “Get Happy.” But yes: Joker 2 is expected to be a full-throated, song-in-its-heart, toe-tapper.

That departure from the first film is one of the most curious and appealing things about Phillips and Phoenix returning to the well of a project that seemed fairly insular five years ago. However, we now have confirmation that isn’t the only tip of the hat to Hollywood’s Golden Age, and specifically toward Warner Bros. at that. Indeed, according to a new report in Variety,...

Variety has sat down with Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips to learn more about the sequel to his and Joaquin Phoenix's 2019 hit, Joker (which lost its crown to Deadpool & Wolverine as the highest-grossing R-Rated movie ever this past weekend).

Apparently, Phillips and Phoenix started mulling over follow-up ideas pretty early on, with one being to take the Clown Prince of Crime to Broadway. Literally!

"When we started really thinking about it, we realized it takes four years to put something like that together. And is Joaquin really going to give six months of his life to do that every night onstage?" the filmmaker explains. "Then we thought about doing it at the Carlyle as sort of a smaller thing. But Covid hit."

Instead, Joker: Folie à Deux opens with a "Looney Tunes-inspired cartoon" animated by The Triplets of Belleville's Sylvain Chomet before becoming a "full-blown...

Back when the first "Joker" movie was coming out in 2019, it's safe to say that pretty much everybody lost their collective minds in every sense of the phrase. After its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, early reactions painted the R-rated comic book movie as everything from the next coming of Jesus Christ himself to the single worst experience ever committed to the medium of film to, incredibly enough, a "dangerous" work that would inevitably lead to real-world violence ... somehow. It was easy to see how Joaquin Phoenix's mentally-unwell character known as Arthur Fleck might've actually had a point when he said, "Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?" But forget all that, because the original movie apparently has nothing on what the sequel has in store for us right from the jump.

"Joker: Folie à Deux" marks director Todd Phillips' follow-up effort set...

Jonas Trueba’s The Other Way Around has received the Europa Cinemas Label as best European film in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

The comedy-drama – which has the Spanish title Volveréis – was selected by a jury of four exhibitors from the Europa Cinemas network.

An eighth feature for Spanish filmmaker Trueba, The Other Way Around follows a couple who decide to throw a party to celebrate their separation after 15 years as a couple.

The jury said, “Humorous and cleverly written, the film’s circular structure manifests generosity of spirit in its inspiring look at human relationships. It is a pleasing beacon of positivity,...