News

Palestinian director Laila Abbas’ female empowerment drama “Thank You for Banking With Us!” won best film and director at the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films at an event held on the sidelines of the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

“Thank You for Banking With Us!” tackles the hot button issue of sexist Middle Eastern inheritance rules dictated by Islamic Sharia law, under which a man has a right to take double the share of a woman.

Morocco’s “Everybody Loves Touda,” written by Nabil Ayouch and Maryam Touzani, won the screenplay award, and best actress for Nisrin Erradi.

Adam Bessa won best actor with French-Tunisian film “Ghost Trail.”

The awards highlight the best achievements in Arab filmmaking over the past year, with this year’s winners selected by a panel of 281 film critics from around the world.

The awards are organized by the Arab Cinema Center in collaboration with Mad Solutions,...

Laila Abbas’s Thank You For Banking With Us has scooped best film at the ninth Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will celebrate its winners in Cannes today (May 17).

The Palestinian drama, which debuted at the BFI London Film Festival, also picked up best director for debut feature filmmaker Abbas. The story follows two sisters, played by Clara Khoury and Yasmine Al Massri, who race against time to secure their father’s inheritance.

Also picking up two awards was Nabil Ayouch’s Moroccan film Everybody Loves Touda, which bowed in the Cannes Premiere section of last year’s festival.

Thank You For Banking With Us, Everybody Loves Touda, Ghost Trail and Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo lead the nominations for the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will take place during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

All four features have received five nominations apiece for the awards, which spotlight Arab films that premiered outside the Arab world in 2024.

Mehdi Barsaoui’s Aïcha follows closely behind with four nods. Several other films also had multiple nominations including: The Village Next To Paradise, To A Land Unknown, Voy! Voy! Voy! and Norah.

Some 281 jury members from 75 countries will vote on the nominees,...

The Arab Cinema Center (Acc) has announced the nominations for the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films, the ceremony which will take place on the fringes of the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Four films are in the lead, making it into five categories each: Laila Abbas’ Thank You For Banking With Us (Palestine), Nabil Ayouch’s Everybody Loves Touda (Morocco); Jonathan Millet’s Ghost Trail (Tunisia) and Khaled Mansour’s Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo (Egypt)

Mehdi Barsaoui’s Aïcha (Tunisia) follows with four nominations. Other films in the running include Mo Harawe’s The Village Next To Paradise (Somalia) Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown (Palestine); Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy! (Egypt) and Tawfik Alzaidi’s Norah (Saudi Arabia)

This year’s winners will be revealed during a ceremony on May 17 in Cannes. The event is organized by the Acc in collaboration with Mad Solutions and...

Nabil Ayouch, a well-known French-Moroccan filmmaker, is about to take on his first French-language project. This new movie will be a psychological thriller with a strong female lead, starring Virginie Efira and Maryam Touzani.

Ayouch recently presented his film Everybody Loves Touda at the Cannes Film Festival, which was also Morocco’s official entry for the Oscars. His past works include the acclaimed Casablanca Beats, which was featured at Cannes in 2021, and Much Loved, which got significant praise.

His next project is set to start filming later this year. This will be the first time Ayouch works with Virginie Efira, one of France’s top stars. Though plot details are still a secret, it’s been revealed that Efira will play a woman who adopts a child in Morocco. The story will explore adoption and the moral dilemmas faced by a couple.

Set in Morocco but shot in French, this...

Nabil Ayouch, who sits on this year’s Berlin Film Festival jury, is set to make his French-language debut with a female-led psychological and sensual thriller starring Virginie Efira and Maryam Touzani.

The French-Moroccan filmmaker and producer presented his latest film, “Everybody Loves Touda,” at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and it was Morocco’s official Oscar entry. Ayouch’s best-known credits include “Casablanca Beats,” which competed at Cannes in 2021, as well as the critically acclaimed “Much Loved.”

His next film, which will start production during the last quarter of this year, will see Ayouch work for the first time with Efira, one of France’s biggest and most bankable stars. While the movie’s plot remains under wraps, Ayouch says Efira will play a woman adopting a child in Morocco. It’s film that questions adoption and a couple faced with moral choices.

Ayouch will work in French...

Todd Haynes, who is serving as Berlin Film Festival jury president, spoke out against Donald Trump’s administration as the fest kicked off on Thursday.

When asked his thoughts on Trump’s second term at the jury press conference, the “May December” director said bluntly: “We’re in a state of particular crisis right now in the United States, but also globally.”

He continued, “Everyone I know in the United States and friends abroad are witnessing this barrage of actions in the first three weeks of the Trump administration with tremendous concern, shock. I think that’s been part of the strategy, to create a sense of destabilization and shock among the people. So how we proceed toward coalescing different forms of resistance are still in the works and are still being figured out among Democrats. I have no doubt that there will be many people who did in fact...

The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the competition jury of its 75th edition, including Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (“Everybody Loves Touda”), German costume designer Bina Daigeler (Tár), Argentinian director Rodrigo Moreno (“The Delinquents”), film critic Amy Nicholson and actress-director Maria Schrader (“She Said”).

As previously announced, the jury will be presided over by “May December” filmmaker Todd Haynes.

Earlier this month, the festival announced an exciting lineup, including Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” starring Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley, and Michel Franco’s “Dreams” with Jessica Chastain. Other notable titles on the competition roster include “Hot Milk,” the feature debut of acclaimed screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (“She Said”) starring Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps; and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Mary Bronstein’s film starring Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky and Conan O’Brien.

A pair of Chinese movies, “Girls on Wire” (“Xiang fei...

Jonathan Kent’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night starring Jessica Lange and Ed Harris will make its world premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival as the full line-up is confirmed.

Adapted from Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer-winning play, the film marks Kent’s directorial debut and also stars Ben Foster. Filming took place in County Wicklow before wrapping in 2022 and facing several delays.

Both Lange and Harris will attend the festival where they will be honoured with the Volta Award, which recognises filmmakers and actors who have had an “extraordinary impact” on world cinema.

The festival will open with...

There are 323 feature films eligible for the upcoming Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday, though a whopping 36% of those – 116 feature films – are not eligible for consideration in the Best Picture category.

The discrepancy between films that have qualified for the top category and films that are eligible in other categories comes either because the filmmakers did not attempt to qualify – likely the case for several documentary, animated or international films. Or because of new eligibility rules that require Best Picture candidates to meet additional benchmarks for diversity and inclusion. This is the second year that Representation and Inclusion Standards (Raise) have been enforced, though they did not appear to disqualify any serious contenders in the category.

Among titles excluded from Best Picture consideration are Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” starring Barry Keoghan, Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut “Woman of the Year,” Michael Keaton’s directorial debut “Knox Goes Away,...

The Marrakech Film Festival, which opened Friday with Justin Kurzel’s timely thriller “The Order,” has more than 70 films in its lineup, which, as is customary, mixes known titles and fresh fare.

“The Order” is part of the event’s gala screenings that also comprise French-Moroccan auteur Nabil Ayouch’s feminist musical drama “Everybody Loves Touda,” Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” all of which will be accompanied by their directors.

The 14-title competition dedicated to first and second works includes Moroccan director Saïd Hamich Benlarbi’s melodrama “Across the Sea,” about North African exiles in Marseilles, and Hind Meddeb’s doc “Sudan, Remember Us,” which pays homage to Sudanese people and culture by chronicling their 2019 revolution. “Sudan, Remember Us” is among films supported by the fest’s Atlas Workshops industry initiative, aimed at fostering and supporting the emergence of a new generation of Moroccan,...

Thanksgiving has long been a deadline of sorts for studios campaigning for Oscar nominations, because it offers the tempting proposition of a holiday weekend in which voters might have free time to catch up on movies. In past years, that meant a steady stream of screener DVDs arriving in voters’ mailboxes in the days before Thanksgiving – but now, with the Academy focusing on its members-only screening platform and placing restrictions on physical screeners, the push is to get new films into the Academy Screening Room before the holiday.

Fifteen new films were added to that room on Wednesday, a departure from the usual weekly additions, which typically come every Friday. The newcomers include Best Picture contenders “Conclave” and “The Piano Lesson,” following a Nov. 22 influx that included “Emilia Perez,” “Joker: Folie a Deux,” “Juror No. 2,” “Nightbitch,” “A Real Pain,” “The Room Next Door,” “Saturday Night” and “September 5.”

But some major films are still missing,...

The Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has announced its full industry programme. Running from December 7th to 11th, 2024, in Jeddah’s vibrant Al Balad district, this year’s expanded five-day program offers an exceptional line-up of activities bringing together new talent, emerging filmmakers and established regional and international industry leaders for a series of events, talks and networking opportunities. The Red Sea Souk activities will take place alongside the growing marketplace which features 142 exhibitors from 32 countries this year.

Shivani Pandya Malhotra, Rsiff’s Managing Director, said: “The Souk is a vital part of the Rsiff experience, serving as a hub for collaboration, innovation, and opportunity. This year, we are more committed than ever to creating an environment where filmmakers, producers, and industry professionals can come together to share knowledge, forge meaningful connections, and shape the future of cinema. We are excited to present this year’s events and thankful...

Michael Gracey’s Robbie Williams biopic musical Better Man will open the 36th annual Palm Springs Film Festival on Thursday, January 2, while The Penguin Lessons, directed by Peter Cattaneo and starring Steve Coogan in the heartwarming story of a teacher who rescues and adopts an adorable penguin, closes it out January 13. Both films had premieres at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this year, and Better Man first had its world premiere at Telluride.

As always a hallmark of Psiff are screenings of numerous entries into the Oscar International Feature Film race, this year with 35 scheduled to screen in the desert.

The festival has programmed 158 films from 71 countries including 68 premieres. The lineup also includes sections like Talking Pictures, a focus on Spanish films with a spotlight on Pedro Almodóvar, New Voices New Visions, Modern Masters, Queer Cinema, Cine Latino, True Stories,...

On Tuesday, the Palm Springs International Film Festival (Psiff) announced its official 2025 lineup for the nearly two-week event that’s being held from Jan. 2 to Jan. 13.

The opening night movie will be Paramount Pictures’ “Better Man,” starring Robbie Williams and directed by Michael Gracey, which chronicles the pop star’s meteoric rise and dramatic fall. And the festival will close with Sony Pictures Classics’ “The Penguin Lessons,” starring Steve Coogan and directed by Peter Cattaneo, in the dramedy about a teacher whose life changes when he adopts a penguin. In all, Psiff will screen 158 films from 71 countries, including 68 premieres.

Artistic director Lili Rodriguez said, “Our lineup this year is truly something special. In true Psiff fashion, it spans genres and crosses borders to bring an exciting mix of films to the Coachella Valley. Over the past year, our Palm Springs International Film Festival team has carefully crafted a program that celebrates the art of storytelling,...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival is set to kick off on Jan. 2 with “Better Man,” directed by Michael Gracey, while the closing film on Jan. 12 will be “The Penguin Lessons,” directed by Peter Cattaneo.

The lineup will feature 35 of the international feature film Oscar submissions. Over 11 days, the festival will screen 158 films from 71 countries, including 68 premieres.

Also set are a focus on Spanish films including a spotlight on Pedro Almodóvar, and the return of sections such as New Voices New Visions, Modern Masters, Queer Cinema, Cine Latino, True Stories and World Cinema Now.

“Better Man” is based on the true story of the rise, fall and return of British musician Robbie Williams. Cattaneo will be in attendance for “The Penguin Lessons,” a dramedy about a schoolteacher in militaristic Argentina who rescues a penguin.

Several of the honorees from the Palm Springs International Film Awards are set to participate in the Talking Pictures screenings,...

After breaking ground with his 2021 movie “Casablanca Beats,” which marked the first Moroccan feature to vie for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (“Much Loved”) is achieving a new milestone with his latest movie, “Everybody Loves Touda,” which premiered at Cannes Premiere and is now eligible in all categories at the Oscars. It’s the first Moroccan film to do so.

“Everybody Loves Touda,” penned by Ayouch and his wife, the actor-turned-filmmaker Maryam Touzani (“The Blue Caftan”), tells the story a young poetess and singer known as a Shaeirat (Nisrin Erradi), who raises her deaf-mute son in a small Moroccan village. Hoping to give her son a better future and more opportunities in life, she moves with him to Casablanca where she faces setbacks. Erradi, who previously starred in Touzani’s feature debut, “Adam,” prepared for the part in “Everybody Loves Touda” for a...

The Marrakech Film Festival unveiled its 2024 lineup on Thursday and set that Luca Guadagnino would replace Thomas Vinterberg as its jury president. The other jury members will be Andrew Garfield, Jacob Elordi, Virginie Efira, and Ali Abbasi. Vinterberg “had to excuse himself for family reasons,” festival organizers said.

The Marrakech fest on Thursday also unveiled the lineup for its competition, 11th Continent, and Moroccan Panorama sections, as well as gala and special screenings. In the competition, 14 films will compete for the Étoile d’Or, or Golden Star.

The 21st edition of the fest in Morocco will also honor Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and, posthumously, pay homage to Moroccan star Naïma Elmcherqui. The Marrakech fest takes place Nov. 29-Dec. 7.

Check out the full lineup for the 2024 edition below.

Competition

Across The Sea (LA Mer Au Loin)

by Saïd Hamich Benlarbi / France, Morocco, Belgium

with Ayoub Gretaa, Anna Mouglalis, Grégoire Colin, Omar Boulakirba,...

Justin Kurzel’s political thriller The Order starring Jude Law will open the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival in the presence of the director and producer Stuart Ford later this month.

The film is among seven films that will be showcased as gala screenings at the Moroccan film festival, which unveiled its line-up on Thursday.

The galas also feature a trio of Best International Feature Film Oscar entries, Nabil Ayouch’s Everybody Loves Touda (Morocco), Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here (Brazil) and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany), all of which will screen in the presence of their directors.

The festival will screen 70 features from 32 countries across sections spanning the Official Competition, Gala Screenings, Special Screenings, the 11th Continent, the Moroccan Panorama, Cinema for Young Audiences & Families, and films shown as part of the Tributes program.

The 14 first and second films in competition include French...

Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the full line-up for its 21st edition which will open with Justin Kurzel’s crime thriller The Order onNovember 29 and run to December 7.

Kurzel’s debut featureSnowtownwon thefestival’s jury prize in 2011, and the filmmaker returned in 2022 to serve on the jury.

This year’s jury will be presided over by Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, replacing Thomas Vinterberg, and will award the Étoile d’Or for best film to one of 14 first- and second-time features in the international competition.

In total, the festival will screen 70 films from 32 countries, including 14 documentaries, 12 Moroccan titles, nine world...

Academy members who are voting in the Best International Feature Film category have been given 85 different films to consider, according to emails sent to voters on Friday and obtained by TheWrap.

The 85 films make up the smallest field in the category in nine years. Last year saw 88 qualifying films, after the total number of eligible films had topped 90 in five of the previous six years. The record was 93, set in 2000.

In late September, all prospective voters in the category received emails inviting them to vote in the international category and telling them that those who opted in would receive emails with their assigned viewing on Friday, Nov. 1. But those emails came a week early, going to prospective voters on Friday afternoon, Oct. 25, and separating the members into seven separate groups.

Each group was given a list of 12 or 13 films to view, either in the Academy’s members-only screening platform devoted...

After canceling the 2022 edition for a “reset” and postponing the 2023 edition from October to December due to the war in Gaza, the El Gouna Film Festival is back in full force for its seventh edition, taking place between Oct. 24-Nov. 1 in the Egyptian resort town.

The postponements and uncertainty challenged artistic director Marianne Khoury, who started at the job a few months before the festival’s sixth iteration and took over from Amir Ramses. “Last year was difficult because we had to postpone it three times but, in the end, we had a really nice edition,” Khoury told Variety.

“I think I joined at a good time when there was a need to change,” she added. “El Gouna started strong. The program was always strong but the media always concentrated the coverage on the glamor and red carpet. When I joined, I wanted to rebalance that a little bit and...

France has selected Jacques Audiard’s bold musical “Emilia Perez” to represent the country in the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film race, giving that category an instant frontrunner at the 97th Academy Awards.

The Netflix film, which caused a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival with its story of a Mexican drug lord undergoing sex reassignment surgery, is considered one of the year’s likeliest Best Picture nominees, making it a clear favorite in the international category as well.

It was chosen on Wednesday by a selection committee that had narrowed its choices to four: “Emilia Perez,” Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” Matthieu Delaporte’s “The Count of Monte Cristo” and Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia.”

Last year, that committee chose “The Taste of Things” over “Anatomy of a Fall,” going with a ravishing romance over an edgier drama that had won the top prize in Cannes. “The Taste of Things...

France has picked Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set musical Emilia Perez to represent the country in the best international feature category at the 2025 Academy Awards as it attempts to sing its way to a victory in the category for the first time in more than 30 years.

The primarily Spanish-language song-filled film is about cartel leader Emilia, who enlists an unappreciated lawyer to help fake her death so Emilia can live authentically as her true self.

It won both the Cannes Jury prize for director Audiard and a shared best actress award for its female cast Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Filmfest Hamburg has unveiled the full programme for its 32nd edition, which is set to open with Louise Courvoisier’s Cannes prize-winner Holy Cow and close with Pedro Almodovar’s Golden Lion-winner The Room Next Door.

French filmmaker Courvoisier will be accompanied by lead actors Clément Faveau and Malwéne Barthelemy at the opening gala on September 26 for the German premiere of her debut feature, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes where it won the Youth Prize. The coming-of-age film will be released by Pandora Film in German cinemas on January 2.

The Filmfest’s new director Malika Rabahallah and...

The race is on to select films from around the world to compete for the Best International Feature Film award at the 2025 Academy Awards. With the October 2 submission deadline approaching, countries have started announcing their official entries for the prestigious Oscar category. The films under consideration reflect a wide array of styles, genres, and perspectives from the global film community.

The selection process for the international feature film award involves stages of review. After countries submit films, an initial group of 15 finalists will be announced on December 17. Judges will then select just five nominees from this shortlist on January 17, 2025. Last year’s contest similarly started with 88 submissions before narrowing to the final five nominees. The winner was “The Zone of Interest” from the United Kingdom.

Some early contenders are already generating buzz among film festivals and audiences. Croatia entered “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day,” a period drama set in 1950s Yugoslavia about censorship and artistic freedom.

Morocco has selected Nabil Ayouch’s drama Everybody Loves Touda as its submission to the Best International Feature Film category of the 97th Academy Awards.

The feature sees Ayouch explore the country’s tradition of Sheikhat, a type of sung poetry performed by female performers which has its roots in 19th century rural communities. Once revered, these performers saw their status undermined amid the rural exodus of the 1970s, which saw them moving into bars and cabaret clubs.

Nisrin Erradi plays a young woman who with aspirations of reviving the once hallowed status of Sheikhat, but who finds herself instead performing in provincial bars under the gaze of lustful men.

Everybody Loves Touda was selected as Morocco’s submission by commission overseen by the Moroccan Cinema Centre.

It consisted of producer Souad Lamriki; producer-directors Layla Triqui, Asmae El Moudir, Driss Mrini and Driss Roukhe as well as Zine El Abidine Charafeddine,...

Rising Norwegian writer-director Anders Emblem whose “A Human Position” bowed at the Tromsø, Rotterdam and San Sebastian festivals in 2022 before landing a global deal with Mubi, has teamed up again with up-and-coming actor Amalie Ibsen Jensen for his third pic, “Also a Life.”

The Norwegian feature in development to be pitched at the Nordic Co-Production Market Aug. 21, in Haugesund, Norway, is being produced by the talent-driven Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Stær Film), associated to award-winning international helmers including Luis Alejandro Yero (“Calls from Moscow”), Laura Mora (“The Kings of the World”), Nabil Ayouch (“Everybody Loves Touda”), and Ernst de Geer (“The Hypnosis”).

The Guatemala-born Norwegian producer said she first set eyes on Emblem’s work when his sophomore pic “A Human Position” opened the Tromsø International Film Festival 2022.

Pirir said: “I was amazed by such a refreshing new Nordic voice; “A Human Position” was both moving, funny and cleverly constructed. Since...

Ioncinema.com’s Chief Film Critic Nicholas Bell reviewed the entire competition and more. Here is a comprehensive guide to all the feature films across all sections, including logged reviews and forthcoming ones. Though Cannes might be over, we still have unpublished reviews that will be released over the next month.

In Competition:

All We Imagine as Light – [Review]

Anora – [Review]

The Apprentice – [Review]

Beating Hearts – [Review]

Bird – [Review]

Caught by the Tides – [Review]

Emilia Pérez – [Review]

The Girl with the Needle – [Review]

Grand Tour – [Review]

Kinds of Kindness – [Review]

Limonov: The Ballad – [Review]

Marcello Mio – [Review]

Megalopolis – [Review]

The Most Precious of Cargoes – [Review]

Motel Destino – [Review]

Oh, Canada – [Review]

Parthenope – [Review]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig – [Review]

The Shrouds – [Review]

The Substance – [Review]

Three Kilometres to the End of the World – [Review]

Wild Diamond – [Review]

Un Certain Regard:

Armand

Black Dog

The Damned – [Review]

Dog on Trial

Flow

Holy Cow – [Review]

The Kingdom

My Sunshine

Niki

Norah

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Santosh

September Says

The Shameless

The Story of Souleymane...

Few periods on the calendar mean more to cinephiles than the two weekends in May occupied by the Cannes Film Festival. Since its founding in 1946, the French festival has been a launchpad for some of the most artistically significant films of all time. The Palme d’Or is one of the most coveted film awards on the planet, and the festival’s ability to balance subversive arthouse work with major Hollywood premieres has led many to view it as the world’s most significant celebration of cinema.

The 2024 lineup featured a mix of buzzy premieres from New Hollywood titans like Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader alongside exciting new works from emerging directors. Between the Main Competition, Un Certain Regard, special screenings, and sidebars like the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week, the onslaught of new films can be overwhelming for anyone who isn’t able to give the festival their 24/7 attention.

IndieWire has published its Cannes 2024 Cinematography Survey. We analyzed the data to explore (again and again) that the nine-year-old camera, Arri Alexa Mini, is the most popular camera among Cannes filmmakers. Furthermore, interestingly, in its first appearance on the Cannes Cinematography Chart and jumped straight to second place, is the Arri 35.

The main cameras of Cannes 2024 are the Arri Alexa Mini and the 35. Cannes 2024 cinematography

The 77th annual Cannes Film Festival is taking place from 14 to 25 May 2024. IndieWire has reached out to the filmmakers behind 59 films screened in various categories in the festival. The DPs elaborated on the tools they utilized to tell their stories. Read the entire survey here.

Official poster of the 77th Cannes Film Festival featuring a still image from the movie Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa (1991)

As the tradition calls, we took the data and filtered it to the cameras used, to explore tendency. Based on the info,...

Rising Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani, whose latest movie “The Blue Caftan” won a flurry of awards and was shortlisted in the Oscar’s international feature race, is set to make her Spanish-language debut with “Calle Malaga.”

Jean-Christophe Simon’s Films Boutique will handle International sales on the project. “Calle Malaga” reteams Touzani and Films Boutique for the third time, having previously collaborated on arthouse hits “Adam” and “The Blue Caftan.”

A character-driven film written by Touzani, “Calle Malaga” revolves around Maria Angeles, a 74-year old woman who belongs to the Spanish community of Tangier and enjoys the quietness of her life in the colorful Moroccan costal town. When her daughter decides to sell her home, she is forced out against her will. She sets off to reclaim her home and furniture that have been sold to a vintage dealer. Through this encounter, she unexpectedly rediscovers the possibility of love and sensuality.

The very title of “Everybody Loves Touda” poses a kind of challenge to viewers. If everybody loves Touda, dare you not? Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s forthright musical drama certainly doesn’t permit much room for dissent. From first gilded frame to last, the film is besotted with its eponymous heroine, a fiery small-town singer aspiring to the status of ‘Sheikhat’ — a revered class of diva versed in the poetic traditions of historical Aita music. With scene after scene conceived to emphasize Touda’s strength of character and depth of talent, it’s just as well star Nisrin Erradi is sufficiently magnetic not to buckle under the weight of the film’s devotion to her.

As a dramatic construction, however, Touda is more fabulous than she is intrinsically fascinating, characterized predominantly by determined ambition and glittering, show-must-go-on resolve. Ayouch’s script, written in collaboration with his wife and fellow filmmaker...

French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch is in Cannes for the third time with “Everybody Loves Touda,” launching out of competition.

The film tells the story of a young poet and singer steeped in an ancient Moroccan form of folk song called aita, but forced to perform trashy pop songs in bars filled with abusive men.

Below, Ayouch speaks with Variety about what “Touda” says about Morocco today.

Morocco’s Shaeirat poetesses and singers have already appeared in several of your films. That said, how did this project originate?

As you say, I’ve met several of these women during the shoots of my previous films and they were haunting me somehow. In talking to them about their lives, they told me how difficult it was for them to be so strong, so powerful, on stage, while at the same time being forced to live in a world where they feel so...

The Cannes Premiere section stocked up on films from France with Alain Guiraudie’s Misericorde among the mix, the Out of Competition section added a Canuck oddity from Winnipeger Guy Maddin and co., the Midnight Section Screenings landed Nicolas Cage starring The Surfer by Lorcan Finnegan and Sergei Loznitsa once again drops a docu film on the Croisette with an item in the Special Screenings section. Here are nineteen titles that dropped this morning:

Cannes Premiere

“C’est Pas Moi,” Leos Carax

“En Fanfare” (“The Matching Bang”), Emmanuel Courcol

“Everybody Loves Touda,” Nabil Ayouch

“Le Roman de Jim,” Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu

“Misericorde,” Alain Guiraudie

“Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot,” Rithy Panh

Out Of Competition

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” George Miller

“Horizon, an American Saga,” Kevin Costner

“Rumours,” Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin

“She’s Got No Name,” Chan Peter Ho-Sun

Midnight Screenings

“I, the Executioner,” Seung Wan Ryoo

“The Balconettes...