Cannes starts in one week with many highlights
Published: Tuesday, May 7th 2024, 12:34
Back to Live Feed
For Kevin Costner, there is "no better place than Cannes" for his new project. The film festival offers this and other highlights. Switzerland is also the guest country at this year's Marché du Film.
With the long-awaited mammoth projects by Kevin Costner and Francis Ford Coppola, two special heavyweights are celebrating their premieres at the Cannes Film Festival this year. For years, Costner's western film "Horizon" and Coppola's infamous science fiction work "Megalopolis" were the subject of much speculation. Costner and Coppola worked on these films for a long time and invested large sums of their own money in them because no studio wanted to finance them. Stars such as Richard Gere, Demi Moore, Gary Oldman, Cate Blanchett, Uma Thurman and Emma Stone will also be coming to Cannes from May 14 to 25.
Costner once revitalized the western genre with his directorial debut "Dances with Wolves", which won seven Oscars in 1991. Most recently, he introduced more people to the genre as the lead actor in the hyped western series "Yellowstone". The gala premiere of "Horizon, An American Saga" is scheduled for May 19 in Cannes. The work, which is being shown out of competition, will then be released in four episodes over several months. Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Jena Malone can be seen in the leading roles.
Mortgage for film project
"'Horizon, An American Saga' is a story that began 35 years ago, and I can't think of a better place than Cannes to present the result of such a wonderful adventure to the world," the festival quoted Costner as saying. He first submitted the story in 1988, Costner told the industry magazine "Deadline" in an interview. "I couldn't get anyone to do it." In the end, he took out a mortgage to finance the project.
Coppola ("The Godfather", "Apocalypse Now") also spent decades working on the idea for "Megalopolis". The film starring Adam Driver and Shia LaBeouf is a kind of utopia about the reconstruction of a city called "New Rome". The film festival describes the work as a "Roman epic".
120 million for own movie
According to reports, Coppola invested 120 million euros (around 117 million Swiss francs) in the film, which he financed himself. A risk - especially in view of the fact that an initial screening caused irritation among industry giants, as reported by the "Hollywood Reporter". The work was too experimental, sprawling or confusing, the magazine quoted viewers as saying. But some may have said the same thing about Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" before it premiered in Cannes 45 years ago, won the Palme d'Or and became a cult film.
This year, a jury chaired by "Barbie" director Greta Gerwig will decide who wins the Palme d'Or. "Megalopolis" is one of the 22 entries in the competition. A Swiss film did not make it into the selection.
Switzerland is guest of honor at the Marché du film
However, there are four Swiss world premieres in Cannes. These include the Swiss-French co-production "Le procès du chien" by Laetitia Dosch, which will be shown in the Un Certain Regard section, and the new animated film "Sauvages" by Claude Barras, which will be shown as a special screening for a young audience.
Switzerland is also the guest country at this year's Marché du film, a platform for the international film industry. The event will take place as part of the festival. Around 300 people from all areas of Swiss film will attend, as the promotion agency Swiss Films wrote in a press release. The focus will be on innovations in the film industry and, this year, on Switzerland as a country for co-productions. As part of the Marché, filmmakers can present their projects and start-ups can showcase their new products.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic