The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (May 14-24) has unveiled its 2025 lineup. The 57th edition of the Cannes Film Festival sidebar again showcases director-driven works from emerging and established filmmakers, this year opening for the second time in a row with a posthumous movie: “Enzo,” directed by French “BPM” filmmaker Robin Campillo, who picks up the reins from late Palme d’Or-winning “The Class” director Laurent Cantet, who died in April. (Sophie Fillières’ final film “This Life of Mine” opened the event last year.) The Fortnight will close with Eva Victor’s Sundance sensation “Sorry Baby,” which A24 acquired for release later in 2025 during the January festival.
The coming-of-age story “Enzo” follows an aspiring young mason worker in Marseille whose friendship with an older Ukrainian coworker offers him a renewed sense of life. “Sorry Baby,” meanwhile, stars writer/director Victor as a college literature professor reeling from trauma.
Making his Cannes debut will be German filmmaker Christian Petzold with his latest collaboration with Paula Beer, “Miroirs No. 3.” Cannes pundits speculated Petzold might show up in the competition this year; instead, he will cut his Cannes teeth in the sidebar with this story of a pianist whose life is ruined when a car accident kills her boyfriend. Fortnight artistic director Julien Rejl praised the film during Tuesday’s lineup announcement, saying, “It’s a kind of melodrama, very mysterious, but with the same great direction, precision and elegance that makes the charm of Christian Petzold’s cinema.”
“The 57th edition of the Fortnight is pluralist, mixed, rich in discoveries. It celebrates a cinematic liveliness that is invaluable and more essential than ever, even as directors and producers are finding it increasingly difficult to finance their project. It stands with directors the world over in the fight against the homogenisation, the commodification and thus the neutralisation of cinema. We are pleased to share with you a lineup that honours the art of mise en scene and the desire and generosity of the auteurs,” Rejl said in a press statement circulated with the lineup.
Other highlights include Australian “The Devil’s Candy” director Sean Byrne’s latest “Dangerous Animals”; Iraqi, New York-based filmmaker Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake”; Canadian director Anne Edmond’s “Peak Everything” with Piper Perabo; Lloyd Lee Choi’s “Lucky Lu” about a Chinese delivery driver in New York; and more.
Harmony Korine designed this year’s key art, which you can discover over at the Directors’ Fortnight’s website.
Here’s the full Directors’ Fortnight lineup.
“Enzo,” Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo (Opening Night)
“Amour Apocalypse,” Anne Émond
“Brand New Landscape,” Yuiga Danzuka
“Classe moyenne,” Anthony Cordier
“Dangerous Animals,” Sean Byrne
“The Foxes Round,” Valéry Carnoy
“The Girl in the Snow,” Louise Hémon
“The Girls We Want,” Prïncia Car
“Girl on Edge,” Jinghao Zhou
“Indomptables,” Thomas Ngijol
“Kokuho,” Lee Sang-il
“Lucky Lu,” Lloyd Lee Choi
“Militantropos,” Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, and Simon Mozgovyi
“Miroirs No. 3,” Christian Petzold
“La mort n’existe pas,” Félix Dufour-Laperrière
“The President’s Cake,” Hasan Hadi
“Que ma volonté soit faite,” Julia Kowalski
“Sorry Baby,” Eva Victor (Closing Night)
