Cannes is, as is well known, the World Cup in film
and rarely has the slightly worn epithet been more true than this year.
The festival-mutilating Corona virus canceled the festival in 2020 and hit last year's edition, but now the party is back with extra shine and stuns.
What makes the 75th edition extra hot is the somewhat unlikely fact that we have three Swedish directors in the competition.
It has never happened before and will probably never happen again.
It is a triumph: to compare with three Swedish starts in the Olympic final of 100 meters.
There are also three filmmakers
who have already made their names internationally valid and who on paper have as great a chance of going home with a Palme d'Or in their bag as anyone else.
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Get a quick look at the directors Tarik Saleh, Ruben Östlund and Ali Abbasi - who compete at the Cannes Film Festival.
Photo: Thomas Johansson / TT / Karin Wesslén / TT / Pontus Lundahl / TT
From a smaller Swedish nationalist perspective, there are even bigger names in the dance around the Palme d'Or:
David Cronenberg, the Baron of blood,
is back in the body horror genre with the sci-fi thriller "Crimes of the future", which has the same title as the filmmaker's debut but which is still not connected to it.
Weird.
Well, it's clear.
Cronenberg does not want to risk disappearing into the buzz of high-profile films and tried the other day to trigger us by claiming that "Crimes of the future" is so nasty that many in the audience learn to leave the premiere already after five minutes.
Wonderful!
American Kelly Reichardt is a narrower acquaintance but a personal favorite, who serves her own angles on familiar themes, she is best in the odd western films "Meeks cut off" and First cow ".
In the Golden Palm contribution "Showing up", as usually in Reichardt's work, the star Michelle Williams appears in a leading role.
Festival organizers have banned
Russian regime-loyal film, but Russian dissident director Kirill Serebrennikov is welcome.
He also competed last year with "Petrov's fly", but did so from home due to house arrest.
Now the door is temporarily (?) Open so that he can be in place with his "Tchaikovsky's wife", who is high on many's priority list.
In addition, we see fresh film creations from French Claire Denis, the Belgian brothers Dardenne, Japanese Hirokazu Kore-eda, Romanian Cristian Mungiu and a bunch more.
A competition unusually packed
with inspired talent - and as difficult to tip as usual.