Cannes 2024 favourites: here’s who will win according to the predictions

CANNES – Of the twenty-two feature films competing for the Palme d’Or at the seventy-seventh edition of the Cannes Film Festival, how many will be awarded this evening by the jury headed by Greta Gerwigfilmmaker who combines auteur cinema (Lady Bird) and the folktale (Little Women, Barbie)? The prediction game is always a difficult game, we try to get into the mentality of the jurors who in any case are nine with – we are sure – different tastes and approaches to cinema.

But it’s a difficult game to escape and therefore in a mix of critical opinions and hypotheses, here are the films that we find in the Palmares list this evening. Let’s start with the latest arrival: The seed of the sacred fig the film that the Iranian dissident Mohammad Rasoulof he daringly managed to get out of the country and even more daringly to present here in person after a difficult journey which he told to Repubblica. The film is at the same time a harsh indictment against the regime but also a family story in which one can easily recognize oneself even without living in a country without freedom, with a thriller structure that does not make the almost three hours of story.

Before the arrival of this tornado the hypotheses were that the film of Jacques Audiard Emila Perez, a curious object that mixes genres: thriller about the Mexican drug cartel, melody and musical comedy could aspire to the Palma which the French director has already won for Deephan. Certainly much of the film rests on the shoulders of the Spanish actress, who became famous in Mexico with telenovelas, Karla Sofía Gascónwho plays the drug kingpin who undergoes transition surgery and becomes Emilia Perez. The work of the Spanish actress in playing the same character before and after the transition is of great impact.

However, the jury could reward courage and perseverance, the value of which it celebrated yesterday George Lucasof a veteran like Francis Ford Coppola who at 85 had the courage to commit to a project he had dreamed of for more than forty years. Megalopolis it is a monstrous film from every point of view and we would not be surprised if the jury found space for an author who, even if he won the Palme d’Or, would win his third 45 years after that of Apocalypse now.

After two years which saw French directors win the most important prize (last year Justine Triet with Anatomy of a fall while two years ago Titan by Julia Ducournau) this year there were only four female directors out of 22 directors in competition. Two, however, are serious candidates for the title: the Indian one Payal Kapadia (All we imagine is light), story about three nurses in the urban world of Bombay, and the Frenchwoman Coralie Fargeatwhich defeated the competition with a bloody film with a feminist message (The substance), putting Demi Moore who at 61 plays a bold role. The titles that could also aspire to recognition are Anora by Sean Baker, a New York thriller that ranges from the slums to the luxurious villas of the Russian oligarchs of Coney Islan and could herald a revival of American independent cinema (the young actress is also very good), and Grand Tour, an ambitious film by Portuguese director Miguel Gomes who, between past and present, takes a journey through the East of two lovers who escape from each other.

Who knows if there is the possibility of an award for Italy in the palmares?Parthenope Of Paolo Sorrentino it was the only title that completely flew the Italian flag. The last time our country won the Palma was in 2001 with Son’s room by Nanni Moretti. Two years ago Italy was rewarded thanks to the film The eight mountains from Cognetti’s novel, Belgian directors but Italian production with Italian protagonists in our Alps, while last year, although there were three titles in competition, the three directors, Moretti, Bellocchio and Rohrwacher, returned empty-handed.