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Cannes 2015 Lineup: New Films From Cate Blanchett, Matthew McConaughey, Woody Allen

By Jordan Mintzer

At a packed Paris press conference on Thursday morning, Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure unveiled a star-studded lineup for the festival’s 68th edition.

Among the competition titles: Gus Van Sant’s Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Watts; 1950’s romantic drama Carol by Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara; Denis Villeneuve’s cartel thriller Sicario with Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt; Cannes regular Nanni Moretti’s autobiographical drama Mia madre, which co-stars John Turturro and opens Thursday in Italy; and fellow Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino’s second foray into English-language filmmaking, The Early Years, starring Rachel Weisz and Michael Caine.

Adding more star power, the festival will have out of competition screenings for the likes of Woody Allen’s campus-set romantic dramedy Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, and Pete Docter’s Pixar animated comedy Inside Out, as well as a special screening of Natalie Portman’s A Tale of Love and Darkness. Allen has already premiered a dozen films on the Croisette, with Midnight in Paris kicking off the fest back in 2011, while Docter came to Cannes in 2009 with Up as the opening night selection.

Also debuting at the festival: Justin Kurzel’s version of Macbeth, starring Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender, and Amy, a documentary on the late singer Amy Winehouse.

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Before Thursday, Fremaux had already announced two titles in the lineup. One is George Miller’s highly anticipated fourth installment to the series that made Mel Gibson famous, Mad Max: Fury Road, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, which Warner Bros. will begin rolling out worldwide the day it premieres at the festival in an out-of-competition slot. The other one is opening night pick Standing Tall (La Tete haute) by French actress-director Emmanuelle Bercot, which is a coming-of-age tale following a decade in the life of a problematic young man, with Catherine Deneuve playing a local judge. (Deneuve starred in Bercot’s On My Way, which was released in 2013 by Cohen Media Group.)

This is the first time a female-directed film has played opening night in Cannes since 1987, when Diane Kurys premiered her English-language romance A Man in Love in the same slot. As if to respond to recent criticism of its male-centric lineup, Cannes announced a new “Women in Motion” initiative alongside corporate partner Kering, with a series of conferences and events scheduled to take place at this year’s festival, and prizes to be handed out to women filmmakers starting in 2016.

Cannes usually allots three competition slots to French filmmakers, though this year there are four, with two of them given to directors who have competed before: Femme auteur Maiwenn, who won the Jury Prize in 2011 for Polisse, will screen her marriage chronicle Mon roi, starring Vincent Cassel, Bercot and Louis Garrel, while A Prophet director Jacques Audiard will return with the gritty street saga Dheepan, about a Tamil refugee who finds himself in the tough suburbs of Paris. Writer-director Stephane Brize will play competition for the first time with La loi du marche, with Vincent Lindon, a regular in his films, starring as an unemployed 50-year-old man who finds a job as a supermarket security guard and then faces a major moral dilemma. And Valerie Donzelli, who broke out at the Critics’ Week in 2011 with Declaration of War, will present her romance Marguerite and Julien, starring Anais Demoustier and co-writer Jeremie Elkaim, and based on an unproduced screenplay by Francois Truffaut.

Related: 2015 Cannes Contenders: ‘Inside Out,’ 'Money Monster,’ 'Tomorrowland’ and More

One French title conspicuously absent from competition is Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Years, which is already scheduled for local release on May 20. When asked about this during the press conference, Fremaux said that there were still a few slots left, offering up the possibility that the film could still be included in competition. But he added that Desplechin had already competed several times in previous years – most recently in 2013 with Jimmy P, starring Del Toro – and that this year’s selection was making way for new French talent, with Brize and Donzelli entering the competition for the first time.

Three Italian directors were tipped to appear in the lineup this year, and all have been included in competition, marking a strong Croisette presence of new films from the Boot. Palme d’Or laureate Nanni Moretti will screen his autobiographical drama Mia madre, which opens theatrically today in Italy; Paolo Sorrentino will premiere his second foray into English-language filmmaking, The Early Years, with an all-star cast including Michael Caine, Rachel Weisz, Jane Fonda and Harvey Keitel; and Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone will debut A Tale of Tales, starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and John C. Reilly.

Asian titles this year are represented by three auteurs returning to competition: Chinese director Jia Zhangke – whose A Touch of Sin won the screenplay award in 2013 – will screen his generation-spanning drama, Mountains May Depart; 2013 Jury Prize recipient Hirokazu Koreedawill premiere Our Little Sister, adapted from the manga by Akimi Yoshida; and Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien will screen The Assassin – his first feature to show in Cannes since 2007’s Flight of the Red Balloon. There were rumors that Hou’s foray into martial arts filmmaking would not be ready in time, and Fremaux confirmed that the director was working up to the last minute to get his cut in.

While films from Stephen Frears and Ben Wheatley were tipped to appear in competition, there are no British directors currently slated to play the Croisette, though additional titles can still be added in the next few weeks. There is however a UK production, with Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (who won the Un Certain Regard prize in 2009 for the Oscar-nominated Dogtooth) screening The Lobster in competition. Commenting on the film, which stars Colin Farrell, Lea Seydoux and Rachel Weisz, Fremaux quipped that it comes from “the tradition of those films where one is not meant to understand everything that happens.”

Fremaux said that the films unveiled Thursday amount to 90 percent of the final lineup, adding that the selection was taking risks. Overall, selectors screened 1,854 films this year, he said. He also argued that it was not “always the same people in the festival,” adding: “It’s not easy to find the new auteurs.” Eight first films are part of the lineup this year, he highlighted.

As previously announced, Joel and Ethan Coen will chair the Cannes festival jury this year. Isabella Rossellini was recently announced as the president of the Un Certain Regard jury. Lescure opened the press conference by touting the festival’s partners and saying he was “happy as a child” that the Coens were leading the jury. He then showed a short made by the Coens entitled World Cinema, which played Cannes in 2007 as part of the omnibus movie To Each His Own Cinema. The short, which stars Josh Brolin as a Texas cowboy sampling an art-house theater for the first time, drew plenty of laughs at the packed press conference.

While the majority of competition and non-competition titles are being divulged Thursday morning, additional films will be added to the lineup in the coming two weeks. This has also been the case in previous years, with Fremaux leaving a few slots open for late arrivals.

Speculation has abounded in recent weeks about which films will ultimately vie for the fest’s coveted Palme d’Or prize this year. In 2014, Winter Sleep, directed by Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the top festival honor. Fremaux and his team played their cards especially close this year, with many directors, producers and sales agents waiting until the end to learn which movies were chosen.

Related: Cannes: Shia LaBeouf to Star in Indie 'American Honey’

Lescure is serving his first year after Gilles Jacob stepped down in 2014. The festival this year runs May 13-May 24 on the Croisette.

Here is the full lineup:

Opening Film
Standing Tall (La Tete Haute), Emmanuelle Bercot

Competition
Carol, Todd Haynes
Macbeth, Justin Kurzel
Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
La Loi du March, Stephane Brize
Marguerite and Julien, Valerie Donzelli
The Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone
The Assassin, Hou Hsiao Hsien
Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhangke
Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Koreeda
The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos
Mon roie, Maiwenn
Mia Madre, Nanni Moretti
Son of Saul, Laszlo Nemes
Youth, Paulo Sorrentino
Louder Than Bombs, Joachim Trier
Sea of Trees, Gus Van Sant
Sicario, Denis Villeneuve

Out of Competition
Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller
Inside Out, Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Irrational Man, Woody Allen
The Little Prince, Mark Osborne

Special Screenings
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Natalie Portman
Asphalte, Samuel Benchetrit
Panama, Pavle Vuckovic
Amnesia, Barbet Schroeder
Hayored Lema’Ala, Elad Keidan
Oka, Souleymane Cisse

Midnight Screenings
Amy, Asif Kapadia
Office, Hong Won-Chan

Un Certain Regard
Madonna, Shin Suwon
Maryland, Anna Winocour
The Fourth Direction, Gurvinder Singh
Masaan (Fly Away Solo), Neeraj Ghaywan
Hruter (Rams), Grimur Hakonarson
Kishibe No Tabi (Journey to the Shore), Kiyoshi
Je Suis Un Soldat (I Am a Soldier), Laurent Larivere
Zvizdan (The High Sun), Dalibor Matanic
The Other Side, Roberto Minervini
One Floor Below, Radu Muntean
Shameless, Oh Seung-Uk
The Chosen Ones, David Pablos
Nahid, Ida Panahandeh
The Treasure, Corneliu Porumboiu