On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Brent Lang and Elsa Keslassy analyze this year’s Cannes Film Festival lineup, which puts the accent on European auteur filmmakers. And top Hollywood litigator Patricia Glaser talks tough about social media, the Southern California economy, and she offers a full-throated defense of the embattled Casey Wasserman, in highlights from Variety‘s annual Power of Law breakfast event on April 8.
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The Cannes lineup, as predicted by Keslassy’s reporting last month, is dominated by European filmmakers and indie productions, with little in the way of Hollywood star power. Lang, who is Variety‘s executive editor, and Keslassy, international editor based in Paris, discuss what that signals about the world of moviemaking and Hollywood’s place in it.
“I think it has more to do with what’s going on in Hollywood right now, which is that studios are so consumed with franchise type films. The timing of Cannes in May means that the studios that are in the Oscar race and that do have more director-driven movies are a little hesitant to put them out in the public square that early, when they need to keep momentum building towards awards season,” Lang observes. “Elsa is absolutely right that the movies that you end up talking about [in Cannes] a lot of times are not the ones that have big stars. They’re more indie, they’re more European. but, there is this whole economic thing around Cannes, and I think it is disappointing that there aren’t some major studio films because whether or not they are good, they draw a lot of attention to the film festival, and it will be difficult for Cannes to have as much of a kind of a global presence because you don’t have Tom Cruise on the red carpet, you don’t have Steven Spielberg. I know they were going after [Spielberg’s upcoming film] ‘Disclosure Day’ or Christopher Nolan. I know they wanted ‘The Odyssey.’ I think if you had just had one of those movies, you would be looking at a very, very different conversation.”
Keslassy says the lineup shows a clear trend of France becoming a bigger player in the financing of high-profile global films.
“We are seeing France really rising as a creative hub for the industry but also as a financing hub because France has a lot of subsidies. It has a lot of producers and distributors and agents who are really scouting the world, looking for the next gems, backing auteurs,” she says. “So we’re really seeing that taking shape. Joachim Trier’s movie ‘Sentimental Value.’ ‘The Secret Agent,’ Jafar Panahi’s film [2025’s ‘It Was Just an Accident’] — all these movies had French financing. This year we’re seeing three foreign filmmakers. László Nemes, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Jafar Panahi, all making movies in French with French casts. I think it’s really a big trend.”
(Pictured: Closing ceremony of the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 24, 2025)
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Source: variety.com
