Pedro Almodóvar, the Javis and Rodrigo Sorogoyen will fight for the Palme d'Or in Cannes

BarcelonaSpanish cinema will make history at the next edition of the Cannes Film Festival, where it will have three films in the official competition: Amarga Navidad, by Pedro Almodóvar, La bola negra, by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, known as Los Javis, and El ser querido, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. After last year's double win with films by Carla Simón and Oliver Laxe in competition, this historic trio confirms an unprecedented trend at a festival traditionally wary of Spanish cinema. Their rivals for the Palme d'Or will include, among others, new films by such established directors as Ryusuke Hamaguchi, László Nemes, Asghar Farhadi, Pawel Pawlikowski, and two directors who have already triumphed at Cannes: Hirokazu Kore-eda and Cristian Mungiu.

For Almodóvar, competing at Cannes is almost a habit. Like other established directors, the festival allows him to participate even though the film has been commercially released. After winning the Golden Lion with the previous film, La habitación de al lado, the La Mancha-born director will once again try to win the only award that still eludes him: the Palme d'Or at Cannes. In contrast, Los Javis and Rodrigo Sorogoyen are debuting in the Cannes competition. The duo formed by Ambrossi and Calvo are doing so with a film that very freely adapts Lorca's unfinished work La bola negra, which was to be the first Spanish novel starring an openly homosexual character and of which only four pages are preserved. Sorogoyen, who previously presented As bestas out of competition, brings to the festival the drama El ser querido about a filmmaker father (Javier Bardem) and his actress daughter (Victòria Luengo) who are shooting a film together after many years of estrangement. Luengo will be one of the protagonists of the official Cannes competition, as she has two films there, El ser querido and Amarga Navidad.

As the rumors suggested, it will be an edition marked by the absence of major Hollywood titles. "The United States will be present at the festival, but the big studios less so," acknowledged Thierry Frémaux, the festival's director, who guaranteed the prominence of American "}indie cinema. For example, Jane Schoenbrun's anticipated new film, "Teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma," which will open the parallel Un Certain Regard section, Ira Sachs's drama about AIDS that will compete for the Palme d'Or ("The man I love") or Steven Soderbergh's "John: The last interview", a documentary about John Lennon in which the director used AI to complete the film. Also to be screened at Cannes is the documentary about photographer Richard Avedon directed by Ron Howard and John Travolta's directorial debut, "Propeller One-Way Night Coach", which adapts a children's book by the "Pulp Fiction" actor.

Outside of competition, there is also a good assortment of succulent cinematic offerings: a samurai film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Kokurojo: The samurai and the prisoner"), a new comedy by Quentin Dupieux (Full Phil") starring Kristen Stewart, and the horror "}thriller "Her private hell" by a regular of the official competition, Nicolas Winding Refn, this year in the "}Midnight screen" section. Also to be shown at the festival are new films by Volker Schlöndorff, Daniel Auteuil, Agnès Jaoui, and Guillaume Canet. And Catalonia will also be present at the festival with "La más dulce", by Laïla Marrakchi, a Catalan co-production – through Fasten Films – with France, Morocco, and Belgium about a Moroccan woman who leaves her country to work harvesting fruit in Huelva.

The Cannes Film Festival will celebrate its next edition from May 12 to 23. Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook ("Old boy") will be the president of the jury that will determine the awards of the official competition. Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand will receive the Honorary Palme d'Or and the opening film will be "La Vénus électrique", a classically inspired comedy directed by Pierre Salvadori and set in 1920s Paris.