Scarlett Johansson is set to star on-screen and behind the camera at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, organizers said as they unveiled the line-up of movies that will compete for honors on the French Riviera. Johansson will appear alongside Benicio Del Toro and Tom Hanks in Wes Anderson’s new movie “The Phoenician Scheme”, one of the films vying for the coveted Palme d’Or for best film.

She will also present her directorial debut “Eleanor the Great”, about an elderly woman coping with the death of her best friend, in the secondary “Un Certain Regard” competition. Organizers stressed they were serious about giving women filmmakers a platform during the May 13-24 festival, while also tackling sexual abuse and harassment that a French parliamentary inquiry called “endemic” this week.

Speaking at a press conference in Paris, President Iris Knobloch said the festival was “attentive” to the recommendations of the six-month inquiry into #MeToo abuses which reported its findings . “(Women) are no longer asking for their place, they are taking it,” Knobloch said. “We are honored to amplify their voices, to shine a light on incredible talent that broadens our view of the world,” she added.

Nevertheless, this year’s main competition looks set to be male-dominated again. There are only six films from women directors among the 19 announced by festival director Thierry Fremaux on Thursday. Little-known French director Amelie Bonnin was given the honor of opening the festival with her debut “Leave One Day”. “It’s the first time that a debut film will open the Cannes Festival,” Fremaux said. France’s Juliette Binoche, who has won acting honors at Cannes, Berlin and the Oscars, will chair the jury judging the in-competition features.

Heavy-hitters

The 2025 line-up includes some heavy-hitting festival circuit favorites including Anderson, Iranian director Jafar Panahi, the Dardenne brothers from Belgium, and veteran American independent filmmaker Richard Linklater. Panahi, who has been repeatedly detained and banned from film-making, will present his latest production, “A Simple Accident”.

He “asked us not say anything about his movie”, Fremaux explained, alluding to the pressures on him. Other directors in-competition include American horror Ari Aster, who has cast Joaquin Phoenix in his “Eddington”, and compatriot Kelly Reichardt who will premiere her heist drama “The Mastermind” featuring John Magaro.

“Alpha” by 2021 Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau, “Dossier 137” by Dominik Moll and “The Last One” by Hafsia Herzi are among the other contenders. “These films depict something about our world ... of difficulty, tension, violence, where you need to make your mark, but also a world that is familiar to us, that we long for, and that we still hope to see emerge,” Fremaux said of the entries. Last year’s Palme d’Or winner was “Anora” by Sean Baker, a tale about a sex worker married to the son of a Russian oligarch which also emerged as the big winner at the Oscars.

Robert De Niro will be in Cannes to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, while Tom Cruise will bring some stardust for the world premiere of the last instalment of “Mission: Impossible”. Palestinian twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser will showcase their latest film “Once Upon a Time In Gaza”, a tale of murder and friendship set in the war-torn territory, in the “Un Certain Regard” section. Although he was not mentioned by organizers on Thursday, former jury president Spike Lee wrote on Instagram that his new film “Highest 2 Lowest” with Denzel Washington would premiere out of competition in Cannes.

#MeToo report

The build-up to Thursday’s news conference was dominated by discussion of the French parliamentary inquiry into the entertainment industry. MPs concluded that “moral, sexist, and sexual violence in the cultural sector is systemic, endemic, and persistent”, according to the inquiry’s chairwoman, Sandrine Rousseau. “The Cannes Film Festival must be the place where this shift in mindset happens,” she told reporters on Wednesday.

The opening day of Cannes on May 13 is set to coincide with the verdict in the first sexual assault trial of French film legend Gerard Depardieu, which gripped the country last month. Depardieu, a tarnished hero of French cinema, is the highest-profile figure to face criminal charges in France’s response to the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to speak out against abuse. He is accused of having assaulted two women on the set of a film in 2021. He denies the allegations. — AFP