Over the years, the Cannes Film Festival Residency has established itself as an essential platform for nurturing emerging talents in international cinema. From October 1, 2024 to February 15, 2025, the 48th session will welcome six promising directors to Paris. The participants are Sofia Alaoui, Rudolf Fitzgerald-Leonard, Theo Montoya, Eglé Razumaite, Diwa Shah and Anastasia Veber. To ensure they make the most of the opportunity, they will also subsequently attend Cannes from May 13 to 24, 2025.
Cannes: promoting young talents
The Festival de Cannes is behind several programs whose objective is to support and promote young creators. Created in 2000, each year La Résidence welcomes young filmmakers that are working on the writing of their first or second fiction feature film. During two four-and-a-half-month sessions, they receive support in the development of their script and in their transition to production.
Winner of the Grand Prix at the last Cannes Film Festival for her film ‘All We Imagine as Light’, a project she developed at La Résidence in 2019, Indian director Payal Kapadia recalls: “The screenplay for All We Imagine as Light was still very fragile when I applied to La Résidence. Having the time and resources to write it in the company of other wonderful writers and directors gave me the perfect environment to work in. I also had the opportunity to work closely with my French producers, which is always complicated in the case of co-productions since we live far from each other. Coming from India, a country where there is a real lack in the distribution of independent films, being in Paris was also a real pleasure as a film lover! If only I could relive those moments!”
Past residents include Lucrecia Martel, Kornél Mundruczó, Sebastián Lelio and Jonas Carpignano, all of whom have won awards from major film festivals around the world.
The Cannes Film Festival will run from May 13 to 24, 2025.