Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Unveils 2025 Selection

The Directors’ Fortnight, the Cannes film festival independent sidebar focused on cutting-edge, auteur cinema, has unveiled its 2025 lineup.

Laurent Cantet and Robin Campillo’s French drama Enzo will open the section on May 14, with Eva Victor’s Sundance hit Sorry, Baby as the closing film on May 24.

Acclaimed German director Christian Petzold (Yella, Barbara, Afire) will make his Cannes debut in the Directors’ Fortnight this year, with Miroirs No. 3. Petzold regular Paula Beer plays an aspiring pianist whose life is upended when she miraculously survives a car crash and is taken in by a family of strangers who offer to take care of her. Metrograph Pictures pre-bought the film for North America last year. The Match Factory is handling international sales.

Other Fortnight highlights include Peak Everything from Canadian director Anne Émond, a bilingual rom-com about a kennel owner who falls in love with a customer service rep over the phone and sets off to find her; Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho, a three-hour Japanese epic set in the world of Kabuki theater; the Iraq-set fantasy drama The President’s Cake from director Hasan Hadi; and Sean Byrne shark-meets-serial killer movie Dangerous Animals.

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.

Traditionally a non-competitive sidebar, Directors’ Fortnight introduced an audience award last year, the Chantal Akerman prize, named after the late Belgian director of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, voted on by professionals and industry attendees, as well as ordinary moviegoers. The inaugural winner last year was Universal Language, a surrealist dramedy from Canadian director Matthew Rankin.

Directors’ Fortnight this year will pay tribute to American director Todd Haynes who will receive the French Film Directors’ Guild’s lifetime achievement honor, the Carrosse d’Or award at the section’s opening ceremony on May 14.

The 2025 Directors’ Fortnight runs May 14-24. Below is its full lineup.

FEATURE FILMS

Brand New Landscape, Dir. Yuiga Danzuka

Death Does Not Exist, Dir. Félix Dufour-Laperrière

Dangerous Animals, Dir. Sean Byrne

Enzo, Dirs. Laurent Cantet, Robin Campillo (Opening Film)

The Foxes Round, Dir. Valery Carnoy

The Girl in the Snow, Dir. Louise Hémon

Girl on Edge, Dir. Jinghao Zhao

The Girls We Want, Dir., Prïncia Car

Indomptables, Dir. Thomas Ngijol

Kokuho, Dir. Lee Sang-il