The Cannes Film Festival announced this morning the lineup for its official Palme d’Or competition for its 77th edition, which includes only one Latin American entry: Motel Destino by Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz. Aïnouz returns to the French festival one year after premiering his English-language debut, Firebrand, starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, also in the main competition.
Written by Wislan Esmeraldo and Mauricio Zacharias, and starring Fábio Assunção, Nataly Rocha, and Iago Xavier, Motel Destino is an erotic thriller described as an intimate portrayal of a youth whose future has been stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite, against which rebellion and violence are often the only possible way out.
In addition to Firebrand, Aïnouz's recent participations at Cannes include his documentary Mariner of the Mountains / Marinheiro das Montanhas, presented as a Special Screening in 2021, and The Invisible Life / A Vída Invisível de Eurídice Gusmão, which won the Un Certain Regard Award in 2019.
Also participating in the official competition is the French-Mexican musical crime comedy film Emilia Pérez, written and directed by French director Jacques Audiard and starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Édgar Ramírez, and Adriana Paz. Co-produced by Pimienta Films, the makers of Cuarón’s Roma, the film tells the story of a woman tasked with assisting an escaped Mexican cartel leader to undergo sex reassignment surgery to evade the authorities and affirm her gender.
Additionally, Cannes will host the world premiere of the documentary feature Ernest Cole, Lost and Found, the latest production by Haitian Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro). The film presented in the Special Screenings sections tells the story of the first Black freelance photographer in South Africa, whose early pictures laid bare the injustices of apartheid for a world audience. Cole was exiled to the US, where his experiences were far from his expectations of the American Dream.
The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place May 14-25.
