Above: Annette by Leos Carax (France, Germany, Belgium, Japan, Mexico). Design by RYSK Studio.
Cannes is back, and so is my annual round-up of the posters for the films in the Palme d’Or competition. Ten years ago I went to Cannes for the first time and did a post-festival round-up of the Competition posters, leading off with Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. Back then I managed to find posters for 19 of the 20 films in Palme d’Or contention; this year so far only 15 of the 24 seem to have finished key art. The best of the 15 is a poster that I have already featured a number of times because it premiered almost a year and a half ago: Javi Aznaraz’s design for Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, which was listed in the Official Selection of the cancelled 2020 festival and also made my Best of 2020 list. Of the rest, the poster by RYSK studio for Leos Carax’s long-awaited Annette is suitably glorious for an Opening Night film, while the R-rated alternative poster for Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta plays with the virginal white iconography of many another nun-centric movie, such as this one and this. Bearing in mind that many of these posters are festival-only placeholders for more fully realized posters to come in the future, the other standouts are the more ornate designs for Kirill Serebrennikov’s Petrov’s Flu and Bruno Dumont’s France. And last but not least there is the lovely, dreamy monochrome poster for Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria—designed by the filmmaker himself in partnership with Studio 150—which simply overlays Tilda Swinton onto a landscape, making her look like a sleeping giant nestled into the hillside.
Posters in alphabetical order by English-language title.
Above: Benedetta by Paul Verhoeven (France).
Above: Bergman Island by Mia Hansen-Love (France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden).
Above: Compartment No. 6 by Juho Kuosmanen (Finland, Germany, Estonia, Russia).
Above: Drive My Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Japan).
Above: France by Bruno Dumont (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium).
Above: The French Dispatch by Wes Anderson (UK, France, Germany). Illustration by Javi Aznaraz.
Above: Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Colombia, Thailand, UK, Mexico, France). Design by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Studio 150.
Above: Nitram by Justin Kurzel (Australia).
Above: Petrov's Flu by Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia).
Above: The Restless by Joachim Lafosse (Belgium, Luxembourg, France).
Above: The Story Of My Wife by Ildikό Enyedi (Hungary, Germany, Italy, France).
Above: Titane by Julia Ducournau (France, Belgium).
Above: Three Floors by Nanni Moretti (Italy, France).
Above: The Worst Person In The World by Joachim Trier (Norway, France, Sweden, Denmark). Design by Midnight Marauder.
Still to come:
Ahed's Knee by Nadav Lapid (France, Germany, Israel).
Casablanca Beats by Nabil Ayouch (Morocco, France).
Everything Went Fine by François Ozon (France).
Flag Day by Sean Penn (USA).
La Fracture by Catherine Corsini (France).
A Hero by Asghar Farhadi (Iran, France).
Lingui by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (France, Germany, Belgium, Chad).
Paris, 13th District by Audiard Jacques (France).
Red Rocket by Sean Baker (USA).
You can see a decade’s worth of previous Cannes Competition poster round-ups here: 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011.