Cannes Directors' Fortnight 2024 Lineup Unveiled

The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight section has unveiled its lineup for the 2024 festival, which will open with This Life of Mine, the final feature from the late French director Sophie Fillières. The drama features Agnès Jaoui as a woman whose identity starts to unravel when she turns 55. Fillières died shortly after wrapping principal photography on the film and her children finished post-production.

There are four U.S. titles in the feature section of the non-competitive sidebar: Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point, Carson Lund’s Eephus, India Donaldson’s Good One and Gazer from Ryan J. Sloan.

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, starring Michael Cera, Elsie Fisher, Francesca Scorsese. Ben Shenkman, Gregg Turkington, Sawyer Spielberg, Maria Dizzia and newcomer Matilda Fleming, follows four generations as they gather for what might be their last Christmas in the family home. Lund, who lensed Christmas Eve, makes his feature debut with Eephus, whose plot follows the final game of a small-town baseball team. Good One, which premiered at Sundance, stars Lily Collias, James Le Gros, and Danny McCarthy in the story of young queer woman going through a transitional moment during a weekend camping trip.

Among the veteran directors in the fortnight lineup this year is French filmmaker Patricia Mazuy whose Visiting Hours will premiere in the Cannes sidebar. Isabelle Huppert and Hafsia Herzi star as two women who bond over visits to their partners in prison. Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s dark comedy Plastic Guns is the closing night film.

Launched by the French Directors’ Guild in 1969 in the wake of the student and labor protests that disturbed — and ultimately shut down — the 1968 Cannes Film Festival —the Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des cinéastes) is an independent section that runs parallel to the main festival in Cannes with a focus on more cutting edge and provocative cinema.

For the first time this year, Directors’ Fortnight section will present an audience award to one of the titles in competition. The prize, named in honor of the late Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce – 1080 Brussels), is backed with €7,500 ($8,100) in prize money from the Chantal Akerman Foundation and will be the first-ever audience prize in Cannes.

The 2024 Directors’ Fortnight runs May 15-25.