Playground‘s Laura Wandel‘s highly anticipated sophomore feature L’intérêt d’Adam (Adam’s Interest) is indeed premiering in Cannes – as the opening film for the 64th edition of La Semaine de la Critique (Critics’ Week). An edition that is heavy on Belgian co-production cinema, Léa Drucker and Anamaria Vartolomei topline L’intérêt d’Adam – a drama that takes place in the pediatric unit of hospital and follows a distraught mother, her son and the nurse who look after them. After Wandel’s breakout debut claimed a top prize from the Un Certain Regard section we were thinking she might be in the running for a competition slot for the Palme.
Also a France-Belgium co-production, the closing film slot might be this year’s Flow – as this dystopian world animated tale also gives voice to plants and animals as the main characters. Shot from Japan to Iceland, Momoko Seto‘s Dandelion’s Odyssey (aka Planètes) has been in the works since 2020. The Special Screenings quartet of films also includes two comedies that were tracking in Martin Jauvat’s Baise en ville (which stars the director and actress Emmanuelle Bercot) and Alice Douard’s Love Letters (starring Ella Rumpf, Monia Chokri and Noémie Lvovsky).
In the competition lineup, Sean Baker—who won the Palme d’Or last year with Anora—will technically return for a second consecutive year, this time as a co-writer and producer for Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-Handed Girl. This joins two films that already have generated a significant amount of buzz in Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke‘s A Useful Ghost and Guillermo Galoe‘s Sleepless City. The comp also include Belgium co-productions in Déni Oumar Pitsaev‘s Imago, Alexe Poukine‘s Kika and Sven Bresser’s Rietland — they are joined by Pauline Loquès‘ feature debut Nino – a drama that takes place over three days in Paris — Théodore Pellerin (who was recently seen in Lurker – preemed at Sundance and Berlinale) toplines here.
Competition
“Ciudad Sin Sueño” (“Sleepless City”), Guillermo Galoe
“Imago,” Déni Oumar Pitsaev
“Kika,” Alexe Poukine
“Left-Handed Girl,” Shih-Ching Tsou
“Nino,” Pauline Loquès
“Pee Chai Dai Ka” (“A Useful Ghost”), Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
“Rietland” (“Reedland”), Sven Bresser
Special Screenings
“L’intérêt d’Adam”, Laura Wandel (Opening Film)
“Baise en ville,” Martin Jauvat
“Love Letters,” Alice Douard
“Planètes” (“Dandelion’s Odyssey”), Momoko Seto (Closing Film)
