‘Elvis’, starring Tom Hanks and Austin Butler, will premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in May. Baz Luhrmann, an Australian director, producer, and screenwriter, his film will get premiered at the Riviera Film Festival, which will run from 17th May to 28th May.
The film’s premiere will feature Austin Butler (from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Tom Hanks (Toy Story 4, Sully, News of the World), and Olivia DeJonge (Josie and Jack, Stray Dolls, The Visit). It’s still unclear where Elvis would fit in.
Butler will play Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll. Elvis Presley who was known as the King of Rock and Roll, died in 1977. Young and elderly alike were enthralled by his energising melodies and sexually charged dancing style.
The film depicts Elvis Presley’s life and music through the lens of his tumultuous relationship with his manager, Colonel Parker. According to the Festival, the story dives into the complex dynamic between Presley and Parker spanning over 20 years, from Presley’s ascension to celebrity, against the backdrop of the developing cultural environment and the loss of innocence in America.
Priscilla Presley, one of Elvis’ most significant and influential persons, is at the heart of that journey. Elvis, directed by Bazmark and produced by The Jackal Group, will be released on June 24 in North America and June 22 in the rest of the world.
With Moulin Rouge! in 2001, which screened in Competition, and The Great Gatsby in 2013, Luhrmann became the first director to present two feature films at the Cannes Film Festival. With his debut film, Strictly Ballroom, which screened in the A Certain Regard section of the Festival in 1992, he became a phenomenon.
While Australian actress Nicole Kidman made waves as Satine in the hauntingly beautiful musical Moulin Rouge, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby was the Cannes crowd’s favourite. There are still two months until the 75th Cannes Film Festival begins, which will be held from May 17 to 28, after being cancelled in 2020 and then moved to July in 2021 owing to the pandemic, but prediction season is in full flow.
After a joyous but smaller summer’s edition in 2021, the festival, its Marché du Film, and the parallel sections are expected to burst back into life this year. Last week, a word from the US that both Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick will be premiering on the Croisette fueled speculation over which films would make the cut.
Screening at Cannes
Official Selection submissions were officially closed on Friday, 18th March, ahead of the usual press conference on April 14th in Paris. As directors, producers, and sales agents scramble to submit final entries, Screen has been in touch with its network to gain a better picture of what has been submitted and has a possibility of making its Cannes debut, whether in Official Selection or one of the parallel sections.
Given that the majority of Ukraine’s filmmakers and producers are presently fighting their country against the Russian invasion, it would be nothing short of a miracle if any were able to submit films and attend the festival.
Pamfir, the debut feature of Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, one of Ukraine’s most promising young directors, has been submitted, due to the combined efforts of producer Oleksandra Kostina of Kyiv-based Bosonfilm and French co-producer Laura Briand of Les Films d’Ici. The story follows an unemployed labourer who decides to supplement his income by taking on a one-time bootlegging job, putting him in the crosshairs of a brutal crime gang.
Several Hollywood films have already been confirmed for the line-up by industry insiders and will most likely screen Out of Competition. Top Gun: Maverick, a Tom Cruise sequel from Paramount/Skydance, and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis are also due to hit the Croisette.
Two films by Argentine filmmaker Santiago Mitre, whose 2017 feature The Summit premiered at Un Certain Regard, are also on the list of contenders. Argentina, 1985, a political thriller starring Ricardo Darin, is in post, while Petite Fleur, a dark comedy in French starring Sergi López and Melvil Poupaud, is finished.
Argentina, 1985 is a film about lawyers who resist Argentina’s dictatorship during the country’s dirty war. The Cannes Film Festival expects industry attendance to be “much higher than last year” in its 2022 edition, with the vast majority of delegates expected to attend. Last year, the French festival recorded a total of 10,000 registrations for its market, with on-site and online participation split fairly evenly.
Due to lockdowns, the event was forced to become totally digital in 2020, with 10,000 professionals registering for the virtual market. Pre-Covid, more than 12,500 industry delegates flocked to the Riviera in 2019. Currently, registration numbers are falling short of last year’s, but the festival anticipates many people making last-minute decisions due to the continued uncertainty.
Edited by Subbuthai Padma
Published by Iram Rizvi
