Scarlett Johansson is set to star on-screen and behind the camera at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, organizers said Thursday as they unveiled the lineup of movies that will compete for honors 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.
Organizers stressed they were serious about giving women filmmakers a platform during the May 13 to 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 honored 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 honor 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 honors at Cannes, Berlin, and the Oscars, will chair the jury judging the in-competition features.
The 2025 lineup includes some heavy-hitting festival circuit favorites,, 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 filmmaking, 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 director 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.