Cannes Film Festival Lineup Features Wes Anderson, Sean Penn, Leox Carax

The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday unveiled a lineup of films from big-name auteurs — including Wes Anderson, Asghar Farhadi, Mia Hansen-Løve and Sean Penn — for its 74th edition, an in-person, summertime event that aims to make a stirring return in July after being canceled last year because of the pandemic.  

Among the films that will be competing for Cannes' Palme d'Or are the festival opener, "Annette," by Leox Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard; Anderson's "The French Dispatch," a film originally set to premiere in Cannes last year with an ensemble cast including Timothée Chalamet; "Red Rocket," Sean Baker's follow-up to his acclaimed "The Florida Project"; Paul Verhoeven's "Benedetta"; and Sean Penn's "Flag Day," in which he stars alongside his daughter, Dylan Penn, as a conman.   Pierre Lescure, president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, artistic director, announced the Cannes' lineup at the UGC Normandie theater in Paris in  a live-streamed event that was part press conference and part pep rally for world cinema.   "Cinema is not dead. The extraordinary and triumphant return of the audience to movie theaters in France and around the world was the first good news," said Fremaux. "I hope the film festival will be the second very good news."