After the successful conclusion of Met Gala 2025 in the United States, another major global event is already knocking at our door. Cannes 2025. ‘the global Colosseum of film,’ returns with its 78 edition on Tuesday in the South of France. With the movie world’s eyes on the Cannes Film Festival, American acting legend Robert De Niro is poised to receive an honorary Palme d’or for lifetime achievement at the opening ceremony. Additionally, American actress Nicole Kidman will receive the 2025 Women In Motion Award on May 18. Fellow Hollywood icon Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning will be presented Out of Competition at the Grand Théâtre Lumière on Wednesday, May 14.
Date: Tuesday, My 13, 2025 – Saturday, May 24, 2025. As per previous reports, keep your eyes peeled for the live coverage from 2:30 PM onwards.
Palme d’or d’honneur presentation: At the Cannes opening ceremony – Tuesday, May 13, at 7:15 PM (around 10:45 PM IST)
Where to watch: Keep a tab of the official Festival de Cannes YouTube channel for 24-hours-a-day live coverage of the competition, including red carpet, press conferences and other events. Bookmark the official website, festival-cannes.com, as well for latest updates.
Beyond the Hollywood glory, there will be plentiful moments sparking Indian pride at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. Here’s what you can look forward to:
India at Cannes 2025
- Despite no Indian film being in the pursuit of the prestigious Palme d’Or, other highlights expected from the subcontinent include filmmaker Payal Kapadia returning to the Cannes Film Festival as part of the jury. The All We Imagine As Light visionary will be welcomed with open arms after Grand Prix win at the 2024 edition of the festival.
- Other than that, Masaan filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan’s sophomore feature film, Homebound, will be featured in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. Starring Ishan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor, it has been produced by Karan Johar and Adar Poonawalla’s Dharma Productions. The leading actors’ trio will reportedly grace the movie premiere. KJo and the Homebound director are also expected to join them.
- Indira Baikerika’s directorial The Second Wind is slated to share the Cannes spotlight this May in hopes of reaching audiences beyond India.
- Cannes Classics 2025: Sharmila Tagore will be back for the 2025 outing to celebrate the world premiere of the newly restored version of Satyajit Ray’s 1970 film Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest). She will be accompanied by her co-star Simi Garewal.
- With the Martin Scorsese-founded The Film Foundation and India’s Film Heritage Foundation behind the 4K resolution of the Satyajit Ray classic, the former’s board member, American director Wes Anderson, will honour the Indian legend. Purnima Dutta, the wife of film producer Asim Dutta, a longtime collaborator of Ray, will also be present at the festival.
“Anything signed by Satyajit Ray must be cherished and preserved; but the nearly-forgotten Days and Nights in the Forest is a special, particular gem. Made in 1970. Modern and novelistic,” said Anderson. His statement via the Film Heritage Foundation added, “Ray worked in terrain perhaps more familiar to (John) Cassavetes. A clash, negotiation between castes and sexes. Urbans and rurals. Selfish men and their hopes and cruelties and spectacular lack of wisdom. Women who see through them. The great Soumitra Chatterjee: lost but searching. The great Sharmila Tagore: mysterious, cerebral, mesmerising. From the master, another masterpiece.”
- A Doll Made Up of Clay, a Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) production, will also be presented at Cannes 2025. SRFTI student Kokob Gebrehaweria Tesfay directed the film in hopes pf wanting to “portray the problems of African migrants in India” as a Black African himself. “I met many Africans playing football in Kolkata. Most of them playing in the low-paid leagues face anxiety, fear and identity crisis. Not many of them can afford to pay rent or go to hospital when they are injured and not playing,” he went on, adding that he wanted to be a voice for them.
- Alongside Met Gala, Cannes also holds a significant post as a fashionable event. Following her yesteryear Met Gala debut, Alia Bhatt is all set to make her first-ever Cannes red carpet appearance as a L’Oreal Paris global brand ambassador.
- The veteran attendee at Cannes and longtime L’Oreal brand ambassador Aishwarya Rai Bachchan will be back on the Cannes red carpet.
- Fellow Cannes veteran Urvashi Rautela is also expected to graced the film festival red carpet this month.
- Indian film industry veteran Anupam Kher’s second directorial in over two decades, Tanvi The Great, will also have its Cannes moment in the Marche du Film segment this year.
Cannes 2025 Jury
- Halle Berry (US actress, filmmaker)
- Payal Kapadia (Indian director, screenwriter)
- Alba Rohrwacher (Italian actress)
- Leila Slimani (French-Moroccan writer)
- Dieudo Hamadi (Democratic Republic of Congo director, documentarist, producer)
- Hong Sang-soo (South Korean director, screenwriter)
- Carlos Reygadas (Mexican director, screenwriter, producer)
- Jeremy Strong (US actor)