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After nabbing a lead role in “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” Ravi Cabot-Conyers has joined the cast of “Beneath the Grass,” a drama about the criminal justice system and marijuana incarceration rates.

Cabot-Conyers joins Mía Maestro, Quincy Isaiah and Jeff Kober in the film, which begins production next month in New Jersey, directed by Will Bermudez and Sam Friedman. Paradigm is representing worldwide sales for the title, which launched at the Cannes Film Festival.

“Beneath the Grass” is set in 2008 and explores both the economic recession and the inequities of incarceration rates of the era. The film follows Leo, an inquisitive and sensitive Latino boy (Cabot-Conyers) who puts his single mother’s (Maestro) illegal marijuana business at risk when he befriends the new neighbors, a young white boy and his police officer grandfather (Kober).

The film’s official synopsis explains that “Leo finds himself yearning for human connection while struggling with...

Thanks to The Banshees of Inisherin, Eo and, to a lesser extent, The Triangle of Sadness, it’s fair to say that when it comes cinematic animals, the past 12 months has really been all about the ass (to the extent that a lookalike of Banshees‘ breakout donkey Jenny even made it on stage at the Oscars).

This year’s Cannes looks set to return the limelight to more established four-legged stars, with dogs having bounded back to the big screen with tail-wagging gusto. And this will likely make life difficult for those sniffing out contenders for the Palm Dog, Cannes’ unofficial awards show celebrating canine performances across the festival’s official selection and various sidebars.

“This Cannes is absolutely chock-a-block with bowzers,” said Toby Rose, Palm Dog founder. “We feel like we like we have an embarrassment of choice — l’embarras du choix — as the French would say.”

And Rose isn’t wrong.

by Cláudio Alves

The festival is past its midpoint, and it's looking like this'll be a banner year. At least, that's the general tenor of the international coverage. The films of the moment offer a wide variety of cinematic approaches. Ramata-Toulaye Sy's debut feature Banel & Adama is being lauded for its rich visuals, while many have declared Todd Hayes's May December as a return to form with juicy acting across the board. And yet, one feels that the Cannes Best Actress frontrunner is neither Portman nor Moore, but Sandra Hüller, who dazzled viewers in Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall. Finally, Karim Aïnouz's first English-language feature Firebrand (starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law) is an outlier earning harsh reviews.

For this Cannes at Home chapter, we consider Our Lady of the Nile which is not directed by Sy, but she co-wrote the script with the director. Then,...