The 69th Annual Cannes Festival is set for May 11 through 22 and as always, is sure to impress with incredible films, stylish celebrities, and gorgeous scenery. This thought is solidified thanks to the announcement that Woody Allen‘s highly anticipated film Café Society will open the festival. Café Society is already breaking records even if it hasn’t screened yet: for Allen, he is the only director to open the festival three times. The New York director previously started the festivities with Hollywood Ending in 2002 and Midnight in Paris in 2011.
Café Society is an Official Selection Out of Competition title and has an impressive star-studded cast of both up-and-comers and Hollywood favorites. Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg star alongside Blake Lively, Parker Posey and Steve Carell. Eisenberg starred in last year’s Competition entry, Joachim Trier’s Louder than Bombs. For Eisenberg and Stewart, this isn’t their first on screen appearance together; the duo also co-starred in 2009’s Adventureland, directed by Greg Mottola. It isn’t just impressive actors and actresses that Allen recruited for the film, he also brought on Oscar-winning cinematographer and 1991 Cannes jury member Vittorio Storaro. For Woody Allen, the festival may as well have a permanent installment of his work: this will be the fourteenth Out of Competition selection at Cannes for the American director, screenwriter, actor, writer and comedian.
Focused on the art of cinema, the festival celebrates new writers, fresh films, and Cannes classics. While the festival works to draw attention to and raise the profile of films with the aim of contributing towards the development of cinema, boosting the film industry worldwide and celebrating cinema at an international level, it has also become a well known lavishly attended event by celebrities wide and far. With Café Society starting it off, the star-studded cast is sure to wow on the red carpet come May.
In a homage to the legendary films that have come through the festival, the 69th Annual Cannes Festival’s official poster uses still from Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt. Presided over by Australian director George Miller and designed by Hervé Chigioni and his graphic designer Gilles Frappier, the poster can be seen below. Through this poster, the Festival is reiterating its founding commitment: to pay tribute to the history of film and to welcome new ways of creating and seeing films.
The opening ceremony, will be hosted by Laurent Lafitte, will be broadcast by Canal +. The Competition Jury will be presided over by George Miller, and the Official Selection titles are due to be announced on April 14th… stay tuned to see what else makes the cut for this year’s Cannes.
