6 best female-led films to look out for at the Cannes Film Festival 2023
The Cannes Film Festival 2023 is nearly upon us, and we're totally ready for all of the glitz, glamour and high-profile stars from across the globe who descend upon the French Riviera for an extraordinary culmination of elite cinema.
Needless to say, film is an industry plagued by men. Still, while slow and steady, the prestigious film festival has always been a platform where female talents have had a chance to show off their immense talents, whether it be acting, directing and everything in between. In the past, we have seen the ever-so-gifted Sofia Coppola scoop up the Best Director gong for 2017's The Beguiled, while The Piano's Jane Campion and Titane's Julia Ducournau are the only two female directors to win the coveted Palme d'Or, which is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival.
With Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson and Maya Hawke.
This year will only serve as an even more welcoming platform for crucial female-led stories to be told, which we hope will add to the growing list of gongs collected from women at the festival. From the likes of big-name projects, including Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, to brilliantly helmed local documentaries such as Four Daughters, and a film honouring the aboriginal community in Australia taken on by Cate Blanchett's production company, we are truly spoilt for choice when it comes to the Cannes Film Festival 2023 shining a spotlight on women's stories from Tuesday 16 May to Saturday 27 May. Here are the best films to look out for, which included a strong female cast and/or female director.
Killer FilmsMay December
Starring Oscar-winners Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, May December will be one of the most big-name movies premiering at the Cannes Film Festival this year.
The movie by Todd Haynes takes place twenty years on from when Gracie Atherton-Yu (Julianne) and her husband Joe's (Riverdale actor Charles Melton) twenty-year age relationship became a national tabloid obsession. Now, with their grown children about to head to college, the couple is visited by a Hollywood actress (Natalie) who probes the pair to understand Gracie more for the movie she's playing based on her life. However, the lines between the two women begin to blur, seeing the once solid couple, who stayed put in the face of adversity, buckling under pressure.
Tanit FilmsFour Daughters
Produced by France's Tanit Films, Four Daughters (Les Filles D'Olfa) is a documentary described as "a film on the edge of fiction, essay, a certain political statement, a human, humanist and feminist commitment." In this eagerly-anticipated Tunisian film, director Kaouther Ben Hania invites a series of professional actresses for a truly unique piece of cinema that looks into the world of a Tunisian woman named Olfa, who one day wakes up to see that two of her four daughters have disappeared.
According to French media, Kaouther Ben Hania is one of six women directors competing for the Palme d'Or this year, so this is guaranteed to be a moving and crucial watch for women everywhere.
AOI proMonster
Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda has had five of his last nine films premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, so we cannot wait to check out his latest flick, Monster, which will, of course, be in the running for several ficks at the prestigious film festival.
The movie is a horror based on the bond between a mother and her young son. Acclaimed actress Sakura Ando plays a mother who feels something strange is happening when her child starts acting strangely. She heads to his school to demand answers to get to the bottom of his behaviour. However, she never expects the reason for her son's actions to be a result of issues that are deeply rooted within society and media.
An official synopsis for Monster reads: "When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms into the school, demanding to know what's going on. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, the truth gradually emerges."
Brouhaha EntertainmentFirebrand
The upcoming historical drama film, which is Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz's first English-language film, is based on the book Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle. The movie, which was retitled Firebrand to avoid confusion with the Anya Taylor-Joy starring Netflix limited series The Queen's Gambit, centres on the marriage between Queen Catherine Parr and Henry VIII.
Alicia Vikander stars as Katherine Parr while Jude Law plays King Henry VIII in the movie, which is set to be a brutal look into how Henry VIII abused his self-appointed power by marrying six wives. In an era where divorce was considered a sin, he had two wives beheaded. While Katherine is famously known to have escaped death by Henry, she suffered deeply at his hands.
The full synopsis for the historical drama reads: "In blood-soaked Tudor England, Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, is named Regent while tyrant Henry is fighting overseas. Katherine has done everything she can to push for a new future based on her radical Protestant beliefs. When an increasingly ailing and paranoid King returns, he turns his fury on the radicals, charging Katherine's childhood friend with treason and burns her at the stake. Horrified and grieving but forced to deny it, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival. Conspiracy reverberates through the palace. Everyone holds their breath – for the queen to slip up, for Henry to take her head like wives before. With the hope for a future free of tyranny at risk, will Katherine submit to the inevitable for the sake of King and country?"
Coop99 FilmproduktionClub Zero
Starring Alice in Wonderland actress Mia Wasikowska, the drama thriller Club Zero centres on a charismatic teacher at an elite boarding school who forms a bond with five students. However, things soon take a shocking turn as she manipulates the youngsters into joining her cult of extreme nutrition, which eventually sees them withdrawing completely from the influence of their parents. Directed and produced by Jessica Hausner, this movie is an in-depth look at the subject of influence, charm and the abuse of a position of power, especially when a female is at its helm.
BEN KING PHOTOGRAPHERThe New Boy
From the land down under, this upcoming drama film starring Cate Blanchett, who also serves as the producer under her Dirty Films production company, takes place in 1940s Australia, where a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy is taken in at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun. According to the synopsis, it is there his presence ruffles feathers and "disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival". Most importantly, the movie was filmed in South Australia, and the production was funded by Screen Australia's First Nations Department, which focuses on improving the lives of the country's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
