[Source: Reuters]

This year’s Cannes Film Festival will see a raft of veteran attendees such as Wes Anderson go toe to toe with art-house cinema darlings like Ari Aster on a red carpet that is set to be particularly action-packed this year thanks to one Tom Cruise.

The film industry keeps close tabs on the glamour-filled festival, where top contenders often go on to pick up Oscars later in the year.

The 2024 winner of the festival’s highest honor, “Anora,” took home five Academy Awards including Best Picture, while “Emilia Perez” and “The Substance” were also lauded.

“What happened to ‘The Substance’ was incredible. And that is maybe what you can mention as the power of Cannes.

And we know that we have some power and we give this power to the artist,” festival president Thierry Fremaux told Reuters after announcing the official selection on Thursday.

The 19-strong competition features returning faces including Anderson, who is bringing “The Phoenician Scheme” two years after “Asteroid City,” as well as French director and previous Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau with her latest, “Alpha.”

Richard Linklater with “New Wave,” Joachim Trier with “Sentimental Value” and the well-established Dardenne brothers of Belgium with “Young Mothers” are also on the list of competitors.

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov is back, one year after his feature about Russian writer and poet Eduard Limonov, with a new film about notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, while award-winning Iranian director Jafar Panahi is competing with “A Simple Accident.”

On the art-house side, master of off-putting horror Ari Aster is in Cannes for the first time with “Eddington,” a reflection on the state of the United States, while Kelly Reichardt, known for “First Cow,” is showing “The Mastermind,” a heist film starring up-and-coming British actor Josh O’Connor, who won an Emmy for “The Crown.”

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