Festival:
The 75th Cannes Film Festival
Dates:
May 17-28
About:
Returning to its regular May berth after a delayed-then-cancelled 2020 edition and a July 2021 edition, the premier film event offers approximately 80 new features, with docs once again making up less than a quarter of the slate, while its parallel sidebars present just two works of nonfiction out of more than 30 features.
Among the offerings:
Out of Competition:
MOONAGE DAYDREAM
Director: Brett Morgen
An artful and life-affirming journey through David Bowie’s creative life, grappling with spirituality, transience, isolation, creativity, and time to reveal the celebrated icon in his own voice.
Special Screenings:
ALL THAT BREATHES
Director: Shaunak Sen
Against the darkening backdrop of Delhi’s apocalyptic air and escalating violence, two brothers devote their lives to protect the bird known as the Black Kite in this Sundance award-winning film.
MARIUPOLIS 2
Director: Mantas Kvedaravičius
A follow-up to the late Lithuanian filmmaker’s 2016 doc MARIUPOLIS, which followed the lives of everyday citizens in Mariupol as the threat of war with Russia escalated, as the director returned to the now nearly-destroyed city to document Russia’s invasion of the country before losing his life on April 2.
MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY (MI PAIS IMAGINARIO)
Director: Patricio Guzman
A chronicle of the recent history of Chile, including the social unrest that started in October 2019 that led to the rewriting of its constitution.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Inspired by WG Sebald’s book and based on WWII archive footage, the film puts forward the question: is it morally acceptable to use civilian population as a means of war, justifying mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals?
RIPOSTE FEMINISTE
Director: Marie Perennes, Simon Depardon
At night, armed with white sheets and black paint, young women plaster the streets with messages of support for the victims of misogyny and slogans decrying femicide, in revolt against the abuse that has too often overwhelmed their lives.
Cannes Classics:
JANE CAMPION, THE CINEMA WOMAN
Director: Julie Bertuccelli
An offbeat portrait of the iconic director.
HOMMAGE D’UNE FILLE A SON PERE
Director: Fatou Cissé
Through the stories of his political fights and relations to others, a depiction of the childhood, adolescence, and film career of Malian director Souleymane Cissé by his daughter.
DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA
Director: Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Focusing on five hospitals in northern Paris neighborhoods, this film reveals that human flesh is an extraordinary landscape that exists only through the gaze and attention of others.
THE SUPER 8 YEARS
Director: David Ernaux-Briot, Annie Ernaux
Super 8 films, shot between 1972 and 1981, reveal not only a family archive but a testimony to the pastimes, lifestyle, and aspirations of a social class in the decade after 1968.
what (not) to doc 