Entertainment

Sean Penn to premiere new movie at Cannes film festival

Films by Wes Anderson, Andrea Arnold and Oliver Stone are also on the bill.
Films by Wes Anderson, Andrea Arnold and Oliver Stone are also on the bill. Films by Wes Anderson, Andrea Arnold and Oliver Stone are also on the bill.

Films by Sean Penn, Mia Hansen-Love and Charlotte Gainsbourg are among the line-up for the Cannes Film Festival, it has been announced.

Mystic River star Penn, whose previous directing efforts include Into The Wild, The Pledge and The Crossing Guard, will unveil Flag Day, the big screen adaptation of Flim-Flam Man: The True Story Of My Father’s Counterfeit Life by Jennifer Vogel, about a father who lives a double life as a counterfeiter, bank robber and conman in order to provide for his daughter.

Penn appears in the film alongside Josh Brolin, Miles Teller and Eddie Marsan, while his daughter Dylan Penn also features.

French director Hansen-Love will premiere Bergman Island, about an American filmmaking couple who retreat to an island for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films, which stars Tim Roth, Mia Wasikowska and Vicky Krieps.

Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, the daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, makes her directorial debut with Jane Par Charlotte.

Other directors bringing films to the festival include Oliver Stone, who will premiere JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass, Andrea Arnold, who will premiere Cow and Todd Haynes, who will unveil The Velvet Underground.

Eva Husson’s Mothering Sunday and Still Water, by Spotlight director Tom McCarthy, will also premiere, alongside Red Rocket by The Florida Project’s Sean Baker.

It was previously confirmed that the opening night film will be Annette from director Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, while Wes Anderson’s new film The French Dispatch, starring Timothee Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss and Frances McDormand, and Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta will also run in competition.

Jodie Foster will receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the festival this year, which will go ahead in person this year after Covid put paid to the usual red carpet festivities in 2020.

The festival previously announced that it will require attendees to be tested for Covid-19 every 48 hours if they have not been fully vaccinated, or show proof of immunity.

The Cannes film festival will run from July 6 to July 17.