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Yesterday Cannes Film Festival released their lineup and everyone (by “everyone” I of course mean the internet, side note, yes I do know everyone on the internet) is talking about how there’s only 1 US entry, shock-horror. More on Cannes selections in a sec.
RecDek House started at Cannes, and we’ll be back on May 17th, the real question is, would you like to partner with us? Does your film, business, or personality, want to get in front of the indie film industry in all its forms? We have some twenty thousand reading this here email, mostly from the industry events we’ve thrown at a film festival near you over the last three years. If you’ve been to our shindigs you know!
To partner with us at Cannes please do send all enquiries to this here form.
Last year was fantastic, but awfully busy with about 500 apologies personally written by me after, to folks that couldn’t get past our French security. This year we’ll be simplifying things. RecDek app users will be prioritised as our way of saying thank you!
So the more you use RecDek the more likely you are to get a ticket. Create your watchlist, invite your mates to connect, make your recommendations! Watch with intention. Support indie film. You can download RecDek today: recdek.com
RecDek House Cannes 2025
RecDek House’s Cinematic Hackathon
Yeh we get it: AI, etc.
But as filmmakers sometimes it can feel like an awfully big task to begin to experiment with AI.
That’s why at RecDek House we’re launching a cinematic hackathon.
We’ll be pairing up AI creators (is that you?) with traditional filmmakers (is that you?) and giving you two weeks to create a short film between 1 and 5 minutes long. We’ll be screening these at Cannes and/or Tribeca.
If you are interested in taking part, you can leave your details in this here form here.
More on this very soon.
(If you’re interested in sponsoring this initiative please do send all enquiries to the Cannes Sponsorship form - just note it).
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Couple of other FUND news flashes for you, before we get back to Cannes…
Mubi's struck multi-year deal with Helsinki investment fund IPR.VC to bankroll prestige European auteur films, starting with Pawel Pawlikowski's "Fatherland" and Felix Van Groeningen's "Let Love In". IPR becomes a strategic investor in future Mubi theatrical projects. Mubi's ramped up high-end auteur production/distribution recently, after it secured $100M from Sequoia in 2025. Recent slate includes Joachim Trier's Oscar-winning "Sentimental Value," Jafar Panahi's Palme d'Or winner "It Was Just An Accident," Jim Jarmusch's Golden Lion winner "Father Mother Sister Brother."
Domain Capital Group closed $768 million for second entertainment fund, bringing total managed entertainment commitments to some $2.3 billion. Fund II targets film libraries, TV participation, music catalogs plus literary works, theatrical productions and sports. Portfolio includes partnerships with Paramount and Sony Music, covering titles like "Sonic 3," "Friends," "The Matrix Trilogy," plus artists Miranda Lambert and Thomas Rhett.
BFI UK Global Screen Fund has expanded… The BFI's Global Screen Fund budget for the UK has tripled from £7M to over £18M per year for 2026-29, with new strands including film sales minimum guarantees for UK sales agents, support for majority co-productions, and a £50K Challenger award for early-stage business development.
Back to Cannes…
So 21 films in Competition (one more to be announced), veterans returning, rising directors getting their shot, but mostly, a very European affair.
The big names coming back:
Pedro Almodóvar's Bitter Christmas already opened in Spain, now getting Competition slot - his eighth!
Asghar Farhadi returns with French-language Parallel Tales - all-star cast including Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Pierre Niney, Catherine Deneuve. His fifth time in Competition.
Hirokazu Kore-eda (Palme d'Or winner for Shoplifters) brings Sheep In The Box - near-future story about couple taking humanoid robot into their home as their son.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) back with All Of A Sudden, his first film shot outside Japan. Virginie Efira runs nursing home with staff shortages, Tao Okamoto plays stage director battling terminal cancer.
Paweł Pawlikowski's Fatherland starring Sandra Hüller - writer Thomas Mann and his actress/journalist/rally driver daughter Erika embark on road trip across ruined Germany. Pawlikowski won best director for Cold War in 2018.
And they said they wouldn't be ready:
Lukas Dhont's WWI drama Coward - programmers only saw it yesterday. Explores heroism and cowardice from young soldiers' perspectives, shot on actual Ypres battlefields. Both his previous features (Girl, Close) premiered at Cannes.
László Nemes returns with Moulin - biopic of French resistance leader Jean Moulin, Gilles Lellouche starring. Nemes' debut Son Of Saul won Grand Prix in 2015.
Rising directors jumping to Competition:
Valeska Grisebach with The Dreamed Adventure - woman agrees to dodgy deal helping old acquaintance in Bulgaria/Greece/Turkey border region, confronts her past and desires.
Marie Kreutzer (Corsage director) with Gentle Monster - Léa Seydoux and Catherine Deneuve, renowned pianist relocates family to countryside, uncovers life-shattering truth.
And the US entry?
Ira Sachs' The Man I Love - 1980s New York musical about city under AIDS crisis, Rami Malek, Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall starring. Only US filmmaker in Competition so far.
Park Chan-wook is presiding over jury. Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand receiving honorary Palme d'Or!
Yikes if you’ve read this far, congrats, would you like something to watch at home?
OUR PICK OF THE WEEK
We’ve gone old school…
Directed by Hal Ashby and adapted from Jerzy Kosinski's novel, Being There is a rare piece of American satirical filmmaking: precise, restrained, and genuinely unsettling beneath its deadpan surface.
The central character, Chance, has spent his whole life inside a wealthy recluse's townhouse, tending the garden and watching television. When his patron dies, he’s turned out onto the street, he stumbles, by accident, into the upper echelons of political and financial power. A misheard introduction transforms him into "Chauncey Gardener," and his tailored clothes, quiet manner, and simple seasonal metaphors are mistaken by everyone he meets for the hallmarks of a serious, sophisticated mind. He ends up advising the President and is floated as a future candidate!
Peter Sellers plays Chance at a single, unwavering register throughout - calm, weightless, completely unaware of the gap between who he is and how he is received. It is a technically extraordinary performance built almost entirely on absence.
The satire cuts at how much of public life, politics especially, rewards surface over substance. Chance thrives not because he has anything to say but because he looks and sounds like someone who does. His hollow aphorisms fit perfectly into the limited space television and politics allow for actual thought.
A couple of subplots feel unnecessary and slightly blunt the film's edge, but they don't undermine its central argument: that the difference between genuine intelligence and a convincing imitation of it may be far smaller, and far more troubling, than most of us care to admit.
Apologies for how long today’s email was! Must do better next week.
Catch you then.
Ed
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