Carla Simón will fight for the Palme d'Or: Catalan cinema returns to Cannes with a bang.

BarcelonaPilgrimage, the new film by Carla Simón, will be in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the most illustrious section of the event and which allows you to fight for the Palme d'Or. The director ofSummer 1993, who once again draws inspiration from her family history to shape this story about a Catalan teenager who goes to Vigo to meet the family of her father, who died when she was a child, will face the challenge of competing with the great names of modern cinema: the Dardenne brothers, Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, Richard Linklater, Sergei Loznitsa. Also with the Galician Oliver Laxe, who debuts in the official section with the Catalan production SiradoStarring the villainous Sergi López and co-produced by Pedro Almodóvar's production company, El Deseo, the film follows the journey of a father who, accompanied by his son, searches for his daughter in the mountains of southern Morocco.

With Pilgrimage, Simón closes the trilogy about his family that began with Summer 1993 and AlcarràsThe film, which was shot last summer in Galicia, is spoken in Spanish, Galician, and Catalan, and aims to be a tribute to the 1980s generation devastated by drugs and AIDS, as well as to the orphans they left behind. Newcomer Lucía García leads a cast that also includes Mitch, Tristán Ulloa, Celine Tyll, Miryam Gallego, Janet Novás, José Ángel Egido, and Sara Casanovas. Pilgrimage, which will hit commercial theaters on September 5, Simón collaborates for the first time with the prestigious director of photography Hélène Louvart, known for works such as The Chimera, by Alice Rohrwacher, which also competed at Cannes.

Carla Simón learned the festival's final decision this Wednesday night. "It seemed like a very remote possibility to me, because it's a film without well-known actors and it doesn't deal with a topical issue, so we feel that the festival really liked it," the director explained this Thursday in a small virtual meeting with the media. As for the festival's distinguishing features Pilgrimage regarding Summer 1993 and Alcarràs, Simón advances that "it is a film that takes many risks" and that "despite having a similar tone to the previous ones, its structure is very different, and the realism that was so important in Alcarràs and Summer 1993 It is not so present in a part of Pilgrimage".

The entrance of Pilgrimage in the official section at Cannes is doubly commendable because Simón's film lacks a French co-production, an almost obligatory requirement for non-established filmmakers to walk the festival's red carpet. Furthermore, this is the first selection of a Simón film in the French festival's honor section, which is not usually accessible to directors who have not previously participated in the parallel sections. This is the case of Albert Serra, who, before competing for the Palme d'Or with Pacification He participated twice in the Fifteenth Cannes Directors' Festival (with Honor of chivalry and The song of the birds), in Un Certain Regard (with Freedom) and in the non-competitive official section (with The death of Louis XIV). The same goes for Laxe, another filmmaker forged in Cannes' parallel sections and festivals.

Making their debut directly in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival is only within the reach of a select few. In recent decades, it has become the largest platform for a filmmaker's international projection. This year, the selection committee reviewed 2,909 films from around the world, an absolute record in the festival's history. The last Catalan director to participate in the official competition was Albert Serra with Pacification (2023), and before that Isabel Coixet did it with Map of the sounds of Tokyo (2009), Marc Recha with Paz and her brother (2001), Agustí Villaronga with The Moon Child (1989), Vicente Aranda with El Lute 2: Walk or Die (1988), Antoni Ribas with The other image (1973) and Jaime Camino with Spain again (1969).

The great names of auteur cinema

As usual, the Cannes program brings together the best of international arthouse cinema. Wes Anderson will premiere one of his star-studded films: The Phoenician Scheme, a spy comedy starring Benicio del Toro, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Benedict Cumberbatch and Scarlett Johansson, who, incidentally, is making her directorial debut with Eleanor the Great in the Un Certain Regard section. Richard Linklater will bring the highly anticipated film to the festival New Wave, about the filming of Jean-Luc Godard's classic At the end of the getaway. Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne will offer The maternity house a portrait of a shelter for teenage mothers, a premise that inevitably recalls The maternal by Pilar Palomero. And the American Ari Aster (Hereditary) turns to black comedy with Eddington, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Emma Stone.

Other films that will be in competition at Cannes are The secret agent, by Kleber Mendonca Filho; Mastermind,by Kelly Reichardt; A simple accident, by Jafar Panahi; Dossier 137, by Dominik Moll; Two prosecutors, by Sergei Loznitsa, and Alpha, Julia Ducournau's return to competition after winning the Palme d'Or with Titane. Outside of competition, some of the highlights include Andrew Dominik's documentary about the U2 singer, Bonus: stories of surrender; Rebecca Zlotowski's comedy Private life,starring Jodie Foster, and Marcel and Monsieur Pagnol, Sylvian Chomet's tribute to the novelist Marcel Pagnol. The opening film will be the musical Going on a journey, from debuting director Amélie Bonnin.

The Cannes Film Festival will hold its next edition from May 13 to 24. A few days ago it was announced that on May 14 Tom Cruise will present his film out of competition. Mission Impossible. Final Verdict, the new installment of the saga Mission ImpossibleThe day before, during the opening ceremony, American actor Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d'Or for his lifetime achievement. And actress Juliette Binoche will be the president of this year's festival jury.