News

Isabelle Huppert sure likes to work. Why else would the person most likely to raise a regal hand were you to page “our greatest living actress,” in between the roles that might earn her that title, take on projects like Thierry Klifa’s perfectly middling “The Richest Woman in the World”? Then again, perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: This follies-of-the-megawealthy downfall drama, loosely based on the 2010 Bettencourt Affair involving the heiress to the L’Oreal empire, feels simultaneously beneath Huppert and entirely built around her. What pleasures it yields stem exclusively from watching the actress swan around without breaking a sweat in a role tailored to her specifications as precisely as costume designers Jürgen Doering and Laure Villemer’s expensively chic outfits.

Marianne Farrère (Huppert) is roused from her bed by the police raiding her mansion. Confronting the interlopers a few moments later, looking amazing she is powerless to stop them seizing her assets,...

The French legal term “abus de faiblesse”, which translates to “abuse of weakness”, describes situations in which a vulnerable person is pushed by another to act against their own interest. When the expression appears in the news, it usually refers to sordid tales of elderly individuals manipulated by someone into giving away their money; the image this evokes is often that of a frail person completely unaware of what they are doing due to their advanced age and failing health.

Continue reading ‘The Richest Woman In The World’ Review: Isabelle Huppert Shines In An Entertaining Real-Life Tale Of Manipulation [Cannes] at The Playlist.

The Richest Woman in the World ushers audiences into the rarefied air of Parisian high society, a realm ostensibly governed by decorum and the quiet accumulation of cosmetic empire fortunes. At the helm of the Windler dynasty stands Marianne Farrere, a matriarch whose vast wealth seems to have purchased an equally expansive boredom. The narrative opens with a familiar gambit: the public image problem.

An interview is arranged, a strategic move designed to sculpt a more palatable, humanized version of this formidable figure for public consumption. From these initial scenes, the film carefully lays the groundwork for a story predicated on the fissures that appear when an external force meets an internally stagnant world, promising a disruption to the meticulously managed facade. The question isn’t if the gilded cage will be rattled, but how.

An Agent of Chaos in Hermès Ties

The narrative engine truly sputters to life with the entrance of Pierre-Alain,...

The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival continues on Day 7 with the world premiere of Spike Lee’s Highest to Lowest, starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, and A$AP Rocky; Michael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville starring Kyle Marvin, Adria Arjona, Dakota Johnson, and Alpha from director Julia Ducournau.

Guests who attended the premieres included Rihanna, Luke Wilson, Edward Norton, Jason Momoa, Wes Anderson, and many more.

Highest to Lowest follows a titan of the music industry (Washington), a man whose legendary hearing has earned him the moniker “the best ears in the business,” as he becomes the target of a high-stakes ransom plot. This perilous situation forces him into a life-or-death moral quandary.

Marking the fifth collaboration between Washington and Lee, the film reimagines Akira Kurosawa’s gripping crime thriller High and Low, transplanting its tense narrative to the gritty reality of contemporary New York City.

Related: ‘Eddington...

The Biggest Camel: Klifa Recruits Huppert to Spoof the Bettencourt Affair

Thierry Klifa, who continues to work some of the most notable grand dames of contemporary French cinema, including Nathalie Baye and Catherine Deneuve, courts Isabelle Huppert as the headliner of his latest feature, The Richest Woman in the World (La femme la plus riche du monde). The film is a fictionalized account of Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oréal heiress who lost control over her fortune when she was deemed unfit to manage it thanks to being swindled by Francois-Marie Banier, a photographer convicted of abuse of weakness in his relationship to Bettencourt (she gifted him nearly one billion dollars).…...

The black market for Cannes parties and screenings is alive and well, according to a list seen by Screendaily.

One of the most expensive offerings is a pair of tickets to Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor The GreatUn Certain Regard premiere and after-party on May 20, which are being touted for $5,495 per person. A photo with Johansson is on offer for an extra $1,995.

The film’s distributor Sony Pictures Classics was unavailable for comment. However a festival spokesperson responded robustly.

“Tickets issued by the Festival de Cannes are free of charge and strictly prohibited from being sold. Any attempt to sell or...

The black market for Cannes parties and screenings is alive and well, according to a list seen by Screendaily.

One of the most expensive offerings is a pair of tickets to Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor The GreatUn Certain Regard premiere and after-party on May 20, which are being touted for $5,495 per person. A photo with Johansson is on offer for an extra $1,995.

The film’s distributor Sony Pictures Classics was unavailable for comment. However a festival spokesperson responded robustly.

“Tickets issued by the Festival de Cannes are free of charge and strictly prohibited from being sold. Any attempt to sell or...

Exclusive: Thierry Klifa’s The Richest Woman In the World starring Isabelle Huppert as French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt has seduced global distributors ahead of its Out of Competition premiere in Cannes.

Playtime has sold the film to Germany and Austria (Neue Visionen), Switzerland (Frenetic Films), Spain (Caramel Films), Italy (Europictures), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Films), Israel (New Cinema), Portugal (Pris), Poland (Galapagos), Greece (Rosebud.21), Hungary (Cirko Film), Bulgaria (Cinelibri), and the Baltics (Bestfilm).

The film is loosely inspired by the titular real-life heir to the L’Oreal cosmetics fortune whose unlikely friendship with a dandy-writer-photographer in Paris to whom she...

Exclusive: Thierry Klifa’s The Richest Woman In the World starring Isabelle Huppert as French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt has seduced global distributors ahead of its Out of Competition premiere in Cannes.

Playtime has sold the film to Germany and Austria (Neue Visionen), Switzerland (Frenetic Films), Spain (Caramel Films), Italy (Europictures), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Films), Israel (New Cinema), Portugal (Pris), Poland (Galapagos), Greece (Rosebud.21), Hungary (Cirko Film), Bulgaria (Cinelibri), and the Baltics (Bestfilm).

The film is loosely inspired by the titular real-life heir to the L’Oreal cosmetics fortune whose unlikely friendship with a dandy-writer-photographer in Paris to whom she...

Exclusive: Leading Belgian distributor O’Brother is to open an outpost in the Netherlands headed by Katrien Remijn, who has worked at companies including Gusto Entertainment, The Searchers, Cinéart, and Bfd, as the Dutch box office continues to outperform the Belgian box office.

Although Benelux rights are acquired together, the two territories are very different and not all films are released in both territories. When they are, distributors tend to collaborate as O’Brother has done with companies including Eye, Cinemien, Amstel Film, Contact Film, and Cherrypickers, creating a long-term relationship with Gusto in 2019.

O’Brother releases around 20-22 films...

Playtime (“Goodnight Mommy”) is producing and repping international sales on Safy Nebbou’s “Nobody’s Son,” a heart-wrenching adoption drama starring Romain Duris (“The Animal Kingdom”), at the Cannes film market.

Co-produced by Mandarin & Compagnie, the project has been boarded by Sony Pictures International Productions which will handle the release in the U.S., Canada, South America and France. Playtime is handling sales in the rest of the world.

The film, penned by Nebbou, revolves around Thomas and his wife, Mathilda, who finally adopted four-year-old Mapring from Thailand. “But just as their new life begins, Mathilde dies in a tragic accident, leaving Thomas alone with a child he barely knows and never truly wanted. Lost and grieving, he

decides to return to Thailand in search of Mapring’s roots and biological mother—and perhaps, in the process, heal both their fractured hearts,” reads the synopsis.

Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, François Yon at Playtime Production,...

Dieciséis años después, el cine español vuelve a duplicar presencia en la Competición Oficial de la Croisette.

© Cannes

Hoy es un día para celebrar. Porque esta mañana se ha desvelado la programación oficial del Festival de Cannes 2025 y, por primera vez desde aquel histórico 2009 –cuando coincidieron Isabel Coixet y Pedro Almodóvar–, dos cineastas españoles competirán por la ansiada Palma de Oro. Ellos son Carla Simón (recordemos que ganó el Oso de Oro en la Berlinale 2022 con Alcarràs) y Oliver Laxe. España vuelve a estar doblemente representada en la Croisette con sus nuevos largometrajes: Romería y Sirat, respectivamente.

Romería, tercer largometraje de Carla Simón, es una obra profundamente personal en la que la directora catalana se sumerge en la memoria de su familia biológica paterna. La historia sigue a Marina (interpretada por la debutante Llúcia Garcia Torras), una joven adoptada que viaja a Vigo para encontrarse por primera con la familia de su padre biológico.

Updated May 8: The Cannes lineup is now complete with four more additions, included below.

Updated April 23: The original April 10 Cannes announcement has been updated to reflect new additions to the lineup.

Updated 10:40 a.m. Et: Cannes has now confirmed that Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” will play out of competition at Cannes. The film was omitted from Thursday morning’s announcement, though Lee shared on Instagram afterward that “Highest 2 Lowest” would be heading to Cannes. We’ve now included the film below.

Earlier: The 2025 Cannes Film Festival lineup was revealed bright and early, starting at 5 a.m. Et on Thursday, April 10 for those following in the States. For those in France, festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch unveiled this year’s crop of films from the main competition to Un Certain Regard and beyond at the more reasonable hour of 11 a.m. local time.

The Official Selection for the 78th Cannes Film Festival was revealed Thursday, with 19 movies in Competition. See full lists below.

Familiar names who will launch new works in the Competition include Wes Anderson, who brings his latest flick The Phoenician Scheme; Richard Linklater will launch his Paris-shot Nouvelle Vague; Jochim Trier debuts his latest feature Sentimental Value; and Titane Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau returns with Alpha.

Cannes will open this year with Leave One Day by first-time French filmmaker Amelie Bonnin. Thierry Frémaux said during his presser this morning that it was the first time a debut film has been selected to open the festival. Also hitting the Croisette for the first time is horror auteur Ari Aster, who returns to feature filmmaking with his buzzy A24 feature Eddington.

Related: Thierry Frémaux Talks ‘Mission: Impossible’; Star Presence; Hollywood Introspection & Oscar Track Record

Elsewhere, American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt will...

Playtime has boarded French filmmaker Diane Kurys’ C’est Si Bon! about the love story between real life French celebrity couple Yves Montand and Simone Signoret and is launching international sales at EFM.

Roschy Zem and Marina Fois star as the couple who married in 1951 and remained together until her death in 1985, but whose relationship was haunted by Montand’s affair with Marilyn Monroe.

The fiction film about love, passion and betrayal is set against the backdrop of the city’s smoky cafés and bohemian nights.

Pan Européene produced the €7.5m film with Alexandre Films and shot in Paris. It...

Isabelle Huppert has started filming in France as a fictionalised version of billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, the heir to the L’Oreal fortune, on La Femme la Plus Riche du Monde which Playtime has boarded for sales.

Directed by Thierry Klifa, the film is loosely inspired by nonagenarian Bettencourt, who became the subject of a social, financial and political scandal when she gave hundreds of millions of Euros to a young artist which led her daughter to launch an investigation that uncovered political corruption allegations extending to former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The film is being produced by Mathias Rubin’s Recifilms...