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Cannes Wraps

Palme d’Or race heats up: The 79th Cannes Film Festival races into its final straight today with competition screenings for The Dreamed Adventure and The Birthday Party ahead of the award ceremony on Saturday, at which one of the 22 films in the running will be feted with the Palme d’Or by Park Chan-wook’s jury. A frontrunner burst on the scene overnight in Spanish directorial duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La Bola Negra, exploring LGBTQ+ trauma through the stories of three men interconnected set in 1932, 1937 and 2017. The film sparked a 20-minute ovation in the presence of cast members Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Penelope Cruz, Glenn Close and Lola Dueñas. Other hotly tipped titles include Lukas Dhont’s Coward and anti-war picture Minotaur by exiled Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. In an extra layer of excitement this year, the Palme d’Or winner (if it is non-English-language) will automatically be eligible for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars under new rules. A win for Zvyagintsev would be a gamechanger with Russia not participating in the awards since 2022. Meanwhile, there was much talk of the absence of the U.S. studios, with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan sidestepping the opportunity to show upcoming pictures Disclosure Day and The Odyssey. But there were still Hollywood stars aplenty, while Hollywood royalty was in town with Bruce Dern arriving for Mike Mendez’s bio-doc Dernsie. Laura Dern took time out of shooting The White Lotus, which is filming down the road in Saint-Tropez, to join her father at the Cannes Classics premiere. Check back for the Palme d’Or winner and much more tomorrow.

The Darker Side Of ‘Married At First Sight’

Reality TV spotlighted: Yet another British TV show was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons this week following the BBC Panorama revelations that two women have accused their on-screen husbands of rape on Married at First Sight UK (MAFS), with another alleging a non-consensual sex act. These most serious allegations have the world paying attention, and it’s all a baptism of fire for new Channel 4 CEO Priya Dogra, who didn’t cover herself in glory when failing to apologize to the women who have made allegations, but sounded far more composed the following day at the Channel 4 annual report briefing, where she made a heartfelt apology. The timing of the briefing wasn’t great for Channel 4, but it did allow the network to answer a few questions and set out the terms of the two reviews it has commissioned into MAFS UK. The allegations will once again raise questions over the toxicity of reality television and how best to protect vulnerable contributors, or whether these shows should exist at all. Channel 4 content boss Ian Katz grew visibly emotional when discussing how there is a “gap” between a channel doing everything it can on welfare and a situation “where you have contributors who have been through a show and feel very let down.” The reviews should unveil findings over the summer, at which point a MAFS spin-off is due to begin filming while the sixth season of the main show is readied for air. The findings could define not just the future of the franchise but just possibly that of British reality telly.

French Revolution

Anti-Bolloré: Throughout Deadline’s time in Cannes, an open letter, initiated by members of the French cinema world to protest tycoon Vincent Bolloré’s growing control of France’s media and entertainment sectors, was the talk of the local film industry. Launched on the opening night with some 600 signatories, including Juliette Binoche and Palme d’Or contenders Arthur Harari and Bertrand Mandico, the letter took aim at Canal+ Group’s recent acquisition of a 34% stake in French major UGC, with an option to buy it outright. Its real target was Bolloré, whose Bolloré Group is Canal+’s largest shareholder, with the letter suggesting the acquisition was the latest step in his “expansion strategy” and wider strategy to “push a right-wing, reactionary agenda” in France. Some responded in a muted manner, with many challenging the suggestion that Canal+’s cinema activities were moving in a right-wing direction, but supporters say dark clouds are gathering ahead of presidential elections in 2027, for which the far-right National Rally party is currently leading opinion polls. In a stunning PR blunder, Canal+ CEO and Chair Maxime Saada managed to put the letter on the front pages of the national newspapers with his announcement that the letter’s signatories were now persona non grata at the group. The threat reignited support for the letter, which has been gathering international steam. As France heads into a key election year, this very French revolution looks set to run.

Insider Interview: Maggie Kang

If original IP is the golden ticket in the film industry, Maggie Kang has discovered it with the breakout success of her animated feature KPop Demon Hunters. Based on an original idea from Kang about a Korean girl band battling underworld invaders, it not only became Netflix’s most-watched film ever but also made history at the Oscars when Kang won the award for Best Animated Feature, the first woman of Korean descent to do so. Kang spoke to us for our Disruptors Magazine on paying homage to her roots and how to create female characters who are “beautiful, badass, strong, really funny, and even stupid.” >>> Read The Interview

By the Numbers

20 minutes – Cannes ovation time for Palme d’Or frontrunner La Bola Negra starring Penélope Cruz.

The Essentials

🌶️ Hot One: Renate Reinsve looks set to star in Mia Hansen-Løve’s eagerly awaited Mary Wollstonecraft biopic, If Love Should Die

🌶️  Another Hot One: Netflix revealed plans for the second and final part of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

🌶️ A third: A24 has wrapped on Dev Patel’s revenge-action thriller The Peasant, which becomes the studio’s first production to shoot in India.

📖 Investigation: Jake looked into Mark Jermin, the TikTok-famous talent agent, for mishandling some self-tape auditions and misstating his power to cast kids in major productions.

🪓 Breaking Baz: Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo, who played Dustin in the Netflix smash, is leading a London revival of Jonathan Larson’s landmark musical Rent.

🏪 Setting up shop: Vet literary scout Philippa Donovan, who wants to reverse engineer the books-to-screen market through Two Script Studio.

📅 Release date: Amazon MGM will put out the Indian action-comedy Vibe on September 18.

🌎 Local to Global: The new Deadline series showcased six Thai producers and directors intro-ing projects in Cannes.

🖥️ “Sat nav around bias”: Confused? That’s how the BBC’s new director general wants to use data to improve impartiality.

🍿 Box office: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is hurtling towards $160M worldwide this Memorial Day weekend.

🎥 Trailer: Check out Rami Malek in Ira Sachs’ Cannes comp entrant The Man I Love.

International Insider was written by Max Goldbart and edited by Zac Ntim. Melanie Goodfellow contributed. Send any tips, comments or ideas for international coverage to jwhittock@deadline.com and mgoldbart@deadline.com