PARIS: Scarlett Johansson is set to star on-screen and behind the camera at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, organisers said on Thursday as they unveiled the line-up of movies that will compete for honours on the French Riviera.

Johansson will appear alongside Benicio Del Toro and Tom Hanks in Wes Anderson’s new movie The Phoenician Scheme, one of the films vying for the coveted Palme d’Or for best film.

She will also present her directorial debut Eleanor the Great, about an elderly woman coping with the death of her best friend, in the secondary “Un Certain Regard” competition.

Organisers stressed they were serious about giving women filmmakers a platform during the May 13-24 festival, while also tackling sexual abuse and harassment that a French parliamentary inquiry called “endemic” this week.

Speaking at a press conference in Paris, President Iris Knobloch said the festival was “attentive” to the recommendations of the six-month inquiry into #MeToo abuses which reported its findings on Wednesday.

“(Women) are no longer asking for their place, they are taking it,” Knobloch said. “We are honoured to amplify their voices, to shine a light on incredible talent that broadens our view of the world,” she added.

Nevertheless, this year’s main competition looks set to be male-dominated again. There are only six films from women directors among the 19 announced by festival director Thierry Fremaux on Thursday.

Little-known French director Amelie Bonnin was given the honour of opening the festival with her debut Leave One Day. “It’s the first time that a debut film will open the Cannes Festival,” Fremaux said. France’s Juliette Binoche, who has won acting honours at Cannes, Berlin and the Oscars, will chair the jury judging the in-competition features.

Heavy-hitters

The 2025 line-up includes some heavy-hitting festival circuit favourites including Anderson, Iranian director Jafar Panahi, the Dardenne brothers from Belgium, and veteran American independent filmmaker Richard Linklater.

Panahi, who has been repeatedly detained and banned from film-making, will present his latest production, A Simple Accident. He “asked us not say anything about his movie”, Fremaux explained, alluding to the pressures on him.

Other directors in-competition include American horror Ari Aster, who has cast Joaquin Phoenix in his Eddington, and compatriot Kelly Reichardt who will premiere her heist drama The Mastermind featuring John Magaro. Alpha by 2021 Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau, Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll and “The Last One” by Hafsia Herzi are among the other contenders.

“These films depict something about our world ... of difficulty, tension, violence, where you need to make your mark, but also a world that is familiar to us, that we long for, and that we still hope to see emerge,” Fremaux said of the entries.

Last year’s Palme d’Or winner was Anora by Sean Baker, a tale about a sex worker married to the son of a Russian oligarch which also emerged as the big winner at the Oscars.

Robert De Niro will be in Cannes to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, while Tom Cruise will bring some stardust for the world premiere of the last instalment of Mission: Impossible.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2025