The 79th Cannes Film Festival opens Tuesday May 12 with Pierre Salvadori's The Electric Kiss (La Vénus électrique) — seven days out — and runs through May 23 [1]. Eye Haïdara hosts the opening ceremony. Park Chan-wook chairs the Competition jury. Honorary Palmes go to Barbra Streisand and Peter Jackson at a ceremony scheduled for the Palais des Festivals stage May 23 [2].

The paper carried the Cannes lineup Monday — Asghar Farhadi's Parallel Tales in Competition, the Iranian ACID-sidebar premiere, the auteur-heavy slate with Hollywood largely absent [3]. Tuesday's register is the jury composition. Park Chan-wook leads a panel that includes Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård, Ruth Negga, Laura Wandel, Chloé Zhao, Diego Céspedes, Isaach De Bankolé, and Paul Laverty — three filmmakers, four actors, one screenwriter, one director-cinematographer-archivist [2].

Competition runs deep with returning regulars. Almodóvar with Bitter Christmas — his seventh Palme d'Or attempt; Hirokazu Kore-eda; Ryusuke Hamaguchi with All of a Sudden; László Nemes; Pawel Pawlikowski; Cristian Mungiu with Fjord; Jane Schoenbrun with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma; Ira Sachs's The Man I Love as the only American film in Competition [4]. John Travolta makes his directorial debut in Cannes Premiere with Volo notturno per Los Angeles.

The Streisand honor lands forty-three years after she became the first woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director, for Yentl. Jackson's marks the Lord of the Rings trilogy's two-decade canon-entrenchment as Cannes's recognition pattern shifts toward filmmakers the festival has historically watched from outside [2].

The lineup is the industry's attempt to absorb a year of US-policy pressure on filmmakers — Iranian directors, a Korean jury chair, dual honoraries representing Hollywood's outside-the-studio register. Frémaux confirmed the official selection in early April. Variety described the year as "auteur-driven."

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles