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.
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.
- 5/23/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Swedish director Ruben Östlund, who won Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for “The Square” and “Triangle of Sadness,” was among the guests at the German Films and Medienboard Reception on May 18 in the garden of the Mondrian Hotel in Cannes.
Östlund, who is in the Riviera resort to promote his latest production, “The Entertainment System Is Down,” was accompanied by Philippe Bober of Coproduction Office, one of the film’s producers, and Erik Hemmendorf of Plattform Produktion, Östlund’s Swedish producer. (They are pictured above.)
German Films, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, was represented at the event by managing director Simone Baumann, and Medienboard, which is a film fund for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, was represented by its CEO Kirsten Niehuus. Variety was the media partner for the reception.
Among the other guests attending were Karim Aïnouz, director of “Motel Destino,” which plays in this year’s Competition section at Cannes.
Östlund, who is in the Riviera resort to promote his latest production, “The Entertainment System Is Down,” was accompanied by Philippe Bober of Coproduction Office, one of the film’s producers, and Erik Hemmendorf of Plattform Produktion, Östlund’s Swedish producer. (They are pictured above.)
German Films, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, was represented at the event by managing director Simone Baumann, and Medienboard, which is a film fund for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, was represented by its CEO Kirsten Niehuus. Variety was the media partner for the reception.
Among the other guests attending were Karim Aïnouz, director of “Motel Destino,” which plays in this year’s Competition section at Cannes.
- 5/21/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Roger Frappier, one of the Bafta-winning producers of Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog, is in Cannes talking to potential partners about a feature adaptation of Canadian novel The Orange Grove.
Rising Arab filmmaker Murad Abu Eisheh is set to write and direct, and has joined Frappier in Cannes this week to discuss the project with financiers, actors, distributors and sales agents ahead of a planned shoot in 2025.
The story is based on the 2013 novel by Larry Tremblay and centres on a Middle Eastern theatre understudy whose chance to go on stage triggers memories of his war-torn childhood...
Rising Arab filmmaker Murad Abu Eisheh is set to write and direct, and has joined Frappier in Cannes this week to discuss the project with financiers, actors, distributors and sales agents ahead of a planned shoot in 2025.
The story is based on the 2013 novel by Larry Tremblay and centres on a Middle Eastern theatre understudy whose chance to go on stage triggers memories of his war-torn childhood...
- 5/19/2024
- ScreenDaily
Cairo-based Mad Distribution has acquired Jonathan Millet’s Critics’ Week opener Ghost Trail from mk2 Films, Somali director Mo Harawe’s Un Certain Regard drama The Village Next To Paradise from Totem Films and Anne-Marie Jacir’s upcoming All Before You for release in the Middle East and North Africa.
They are three of 30 titles secured by Mad Distribution for Mena territories, which also include Saif Hammash’s Palestinian short Deer’s Tooth, selected for La Cinef, and Rayane Mcirdi’s Algerian-French short After The Sun, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight.
The distribution arm of indie studio Mad Solutions plans...
They are three of 30 titles secured by Mad Distribution for Mena territories, which also include Saif Hammash’s Palestinian short Deer’s Tooth, selected for La Cinef, and Rayane Mcirdi’s Algerian-French short After The Sun, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight.
The distribution arm of indie studio Mad Solutions plans...
- 5/18/2024
- ScreenDaily
The Executioner’s Song: Millet’s Stabbing Debut Looks at How Control Moves Beyond Borders
If a Syrian doesn’t find himself in Syria does he still make a sound? In Jonathan Millet’s feature debut, those who are far, far away from their past attempt to make the least amount of noise in this anti-thesis of a spy-thriller/revenge film. In one of the more complex roles in French-Tunisian actor Adam Bessa’s early filmography, Les Fantômes (Ghost Trail) is about what you are running away from and towards — the protagonist is so close to his target, he could smell…him. Unhurried and in protracted process bliss, tonally enthralling and buoyantly evasive, revenge here is served … slow.…...
If a Syrian doesn’t find himself in Syria does he still make a sound? In Jonathan Millet’s feature debut, those who are far, far away from their past attempt to make the least amount of noise in this anti-thesis of a spy-thriller/revenge film. In one of the more complex roles in French-Tunisian actor Adam Bessa’s early filmography, Les Fantômes (Ghost Trail) is about what you are running away from and towards — the protagonist is so close to his target, he could smell…him. Unhurried and in protracted process bliss, tonally enthralling and buoyantly evasive, revenge here is served … slow.…...
- 5/17/2024
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
If the best revenge is living well, it is a truism that has not yet taken root for Hamid (a riveting Adam Bessa), the dark, scarred heart of Jonathan Millet’s brooding, gripping “Ghost Trail.” Outside his soon-to-be-revealed mission, Hamid barely has a life at all, placing him firmly in the genre tradition of the taciturn, traumatized hero whose obsessive pursuit of his quarry leaves little room for anything beyond the constant, careful stoking of his rage, grief and survivor’s guilt. Millet’s expertly tooled movie is far from the first to derive its moral stakes from the desire to find some measure of redress for the victims and survivors of political violence, but it is among the best to also crossbreed this familiar archetype with the urgency and topicality of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Even while the screen is still black as the opening credits unfurl, the narrative...
Even while the screen is still black as the opening credits unfurl, the narrative...
- 5/17/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
The wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated headlines for the past several years, yet receiving relatively little coverage today is the Syrian civil war, sparked in the wake of 2011’s Arab Spring. It is yet ongoing and stands now at an uneasy stalemate. Over a decade of fighting, horrifying humanitarian and war-time crimes were committed; all the while 13 million Syrians were displaced from their homes. These refugees, lost in foreign countries offering asylum, are still looking for answers and perhaps a reckoning and retribution. Director Jonathan Millet’s debut narrative feature Ghost Trail dives deep into one survivor’s psyche and lays bare the cost of a conflict from which the world seems to have moved on.
In Strasbourg, France, mild-mannered asylum-seeker Hamid (Adam Bessa) is doing odd jobs, moving in Syrian exile circles, looking for a man who he says is his cousin lost during the war. Occasionally...
In Strasbourg, France, mild-mannered asylum-seeker Hamid (Adam Bessa) is doing odd jobs, moving in Syrian exile circles, looking for a man who he says is his cousin lost during the war. Occasionally...
- 5/15/2024
- by Ankit Jhunjhunwala
- The Film Stage
The immediate cost of war is front and center these days, as the grim scenarios in Gaza and Ukraine continue to play out in front of us. But in his fiction debut, documentary filmmaker Jonathan Millet takes us beyond the headlines of the now to present the little-discussed realities that face those people displaced.
On the surface, it uses the traditional tropes of the spy movie — a secret intelligence network, cryptic codenames, clandestine meetings in public places — but Ghost Trail isn’t exactly thrilling, certainly not in the manner of a John le Carré novel. Closer in spirit to Spielberg’s Munich, it’s a quietly profound character study about the need for a closure that may never come. In that respect, Ghost Trail is exactly what it says it is; a search for something intangible, something undoubtedly there but at the same time … not.
The French have a saying,...
On the surface, it uses the traditional tropes of the spy movie — a secret intelligence network, cryptic codenames, clandestine meetings in public places — but Ghost Trail isn’t exactly thrilling, certainly not in the manner of a John le Carré novel. Closer in spirit to Spielberg’s Munich, it’s a quietly profound character study about the need for a closure that may never come. In that respect, Ghost Trail is exactly what it says it is; a search for something intangible, something undoubtedly there but at the same time … not.
The French have a saying,...
- 5/15/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s an inconvenient reality of modern existence that we seldom have the bandwidth to devote sincere attention to more than one humanitarian crisis at a time. Just like Afghanistan gave way to Ukraine which gave way to Gaza, it won’t be long before another unspeakable human tragedy absorbs the limited amount of minutes in each day that we’re able to allocate to international news. All but the most saintlike among us have been guilty of prioritizing a shiny new human rights violation at the expense of an ongoing one, but that doesn’t mean that things magically improve once our attention drifts away. Oftentimes, that’s when things really start to get ugly.
Years have passed since the Syrian refugee crisis was a trendy thing to talk about, but the distractions created by our lightning fast world haven’t dulled the painful challenges that millions of displaced Syrians face each day.
Years have passed since the Syrian refugee crisis was a trendy thing to talk about, but the distractions created by our lightning fast world haven’t dulled the painful challenges that millions of displaced Syrians face each day.
- 5/15/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
A stirring, expertly judged thriller powered by a pair of blazing performances, Ghost Trail (Les Fantômes) kicks off Cannes’ Critics’ Week sidebar in first-rate form.
Revolving around a Syrian exile tracking down his former torturer in France, French director Jonathan Millet’s feature-length fiction debut is a work of visceral intensity and formidable control, pulling you into a tight grip and holding you there. The cat-and-mouse premise and brisk, nerve-jangling execution are familiar from numerous other geopolitically timely spy/manhunt tales on big and small screens. But if Ghost Trail doesn’t necessarily buzz with novelty, it boasts a bracing sense of craftsmanship and purpose — of “understanding the assignment,” as the kids might say — both behind and in front of the camera.
Working from a screenplay (“inspired by true events”) co-written with Florence Rochat, Millet displays a shrewd grasp of paranoid-thriller mechanics: fluid camerawork, crisp cutting, propulsive music, anxiety-spiking sound design.
Revolving around a Syrian exile tracking down his former torturer in France, French director Jonathan Millet’s feature-length fiction debut is a work of visceral intensity and formidable control, pulling you into a tight grip and holding you there. The cat-and-mouse premise and brisk, nerve-jangling execution are familiar from numerous other geopolitically timely spy/manhunt tales on big and small screens. But if Ghost Trail doesn’t necessarily buzz with novelty, it boasts a bracing sense of craftsmanship and purpose — of “understanding the assignment,” as the kids might say — both behind and in front of the camera.
Working from a screenplay (“inspired by true events”) co-written with Florence Rochat, Millet displays a shrewd grasp of paranoid-thriller mechanics: fluid camerawork, crisp cutting, propulsive music, anxiety-spiking sound design.
- 5/15/2024
- by Jon Frosch
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cannes parallel section Critics’ Week opens Wednesday with French director Jonathan Millet’s psychological manhunt thriller Ghost Trail (Les Fantômes), starring Adam Bessa as man in in pursuit of a faceless, former torturer.
Running from May 15 to 23, the compact line-up will showcase 11 first and second works features by emerging directors, seven in competition, as well as 13 short films.
Deadline caught up with Artistic Director Ava Cahen on the eve of the 63rd edition.
Deadline: You’re on your third selection as Critics’ Week artistic director. How was it this year?
Ava Cahen: We always put the counters back to zero. So everything felt new, even if it’s my third year. We received a few more films than normal and screened 1,050 features. It’s hard when you’ve only got 11 slots. Obviously there were a lot more than 11 films that we would have liked to have welcomed. There was a lot of discussion.
Running from May 15 to 23, the compact line-up will showcase 11 first and second works features by emerging directors, seven in competition, as well as 13 short films.
Deadline caught up with Artistic Director Ava Cahen on the eve of the 63rd edition.
Deadline: You’re on your third selection as Critics’ Week artistic director. How was it this year?
Ava Cahen: We always put the counters back to zero. So everything felt new, even if it’s my third year. We received a few more films than normal and screened 1,050 features. It’s hard when you’ve only got 11 slots. Obviously there were a lot more than 11 films that we would have liked to have welcomed. There was a lot of discussion.
- 5/15/2024
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
When he won the Un Certain Regard jury’s joint Best Actor prize for Harka in 2022, Adam Bessa wasn’t onstage to accept it. He’d figured he didn’t stand a chance, so he’d gone fishing in Marseille instead and was struggling with a seabass when the call came. He laughs. “‘You have to come back,’ they said. I was like, ‘Nah. I’m in the middle of nowhere right now, I can’t.’ So, I made a little video instead.”
Adam Bessa
This year, Bessa is back in Cannes with Critics’ Week opener Ghost Trail by Jonathan Millet. “It’s the story of a Syrian intellectual who was jailed during the civil war in Syria and now he’s chasing the man who tortured him. It’s based on a true story, about these guys who escaped from prison and tried to create a secret militia, a secret spy group.
Adam Bessa
This year, Bessa is back in Cannes with Critics’ Week opener Ghost Trail by Jonathan Millet. “It’s the story of a Syrian intellectual who was jailed during the civil war in Syria and now he’s chasing the man who tortured him. It’s based on a true story, about these guys who escaped from prison and tried to create a secret militia, a secret spy group.
- 5/14/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
French director Jonathan Millet riffs on manhunt tropes in “Ghost Trail,” the psychological thriller that will be the Cannes Critics’ Week opener.
Variety has been given an exclusive first-look clip from the film, which is inspired by real-life events.
“Ghost Trail” is the story of a Syrian man named Hamid who is part of a secret group pursuing fugitive leaders that perpetrated horrors in the name of the Syrian regime during the country’s civil war.
His mission takes him to France, on the trail of his former torturer. And he manages to tracks him down, as it appears from the clip.
“But with his judgment clouded by pressure, doubt and revenge, can he be certain of the righteousness of his own actions?” the synopsis reads.
Millet, who previously co-directed doc “Ceuta, Douce Prison” – about five migrants who leave their lands to try their luck in Europe and end up...
Variety has been given an exclusive first-look clip from the film, which is inspired by real-life events.
“Ghost Trail” is the story of a Syrian man named Hamid who is part of a secret group pursuing fugitive leaders that perpetrated horrors in the name of the Syrian regime during the country’s civil war.
His mission takes him to France, on the trail of his former torturer. And he manages to tracks him down, as it appears from the clip.
“But with his judgment clouded by pressure, doubt and revenge, can he be certain of the righteousness of his own actions?” the synopsis reads.
Millet, who previously co-directed doc “Ceuta, Douce Prison” – about five migrants who leave their lands to try their luck in Europe and end up...
- 5/8/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes’ Critics Week has revamped its ticketing procedures to prioritise the press badge holders to each film’s first screening.
Press will be granted first access to all first screenings - 11.00 for Competition titles and 14.00 for Special Screenings - via the electronic ticketing platform.
“Critics and all journalists are the people who should be seeing the films first. They are the people who are at the start of a film’s journey, who launch its first steps and word of mouth,” said Thomas Rosso, Critics’ Week programme manager. “Critics’ Week wants to reaffirm the vital role of critics in the...
Press will be granted first access to all first screenings - 11.00 for Competition titles and 14.00 for Special Screenings - via the electronic ticketing platform.
“Critics and all journalists are the people who should be seeing the films first. They are the people who are at the start of a film’s journey, who launch its first steps and word of mouth,” said Thomas Rosso, Critics’ Week programme manager. “Critics’ Week wants to reaffirm the vital role of critics in the...
- 5/3/2024
- ScreenDaily
The Cannes Critics’ Week, the parallel film festival sidebar organized by the French film critics’ union, has unveiled its 2024 selection.
The psychological thriller Ghost Trail, the first feature from acclaimed French shorts director Jonathan Millet, will open the 2024 sidebar. Adam Bessa (star of 2022’s Un Certain Regard winner Harka) plays the lead in the manhunt drama about a man pursuing his former torturer, using only his sensory memories to guide him.
The competition lineup includes Brazilian drama Baby from director Marcelo Caetano, a portrait of a young outsider growing up in São Paulo; Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace, which looks at the lives of Chinese immigrants in Queens; and the Egyptian/French/Danish/Qatari/Saudi Arabian drama The Brink of Dreams about a group of girls from the disenfranchised Christian Copts who defy tradition and set up an all-female street theater troupe.
Baby
Other competition titles include Antoine Chevrollier’s Block Pass,...
The psychological thriller Ghost Trail, the first feature from acclaimed French shorts director Jonathan Millet, will open the 2024 sidebar. Adam Bessa (star of 2022’s Un Certain Regard winner Harka) plays the lead in the manhunt drama about a man pursuing his former torturer, using only his sensory memories to guide him.
The competition lineup includes Brazilian drama Baby from director Marcelo Caetano, a portrait of a young outsider growing up in São Paulo; Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace, which looks at the lives of Chinese immigrants in Queens; and the Egyptian/French/Danish/Qatari/Saudi Arabian drama The Brink of Dreams about a group of girls from the disenfranchised Christian Copts who defy tradition and set up an all-female street theater troupe.
Baby
Other competition titles include Antoine Chevrollier’s Block Pass,...
- 4/15/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.