The ICO team shares some of their highlights from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, including new work from Shih-Ching Tsou, Valery Carnoy, and Lynne Ramsay.
Check back for further announcements of UK distributors and release dates.
Contents:
Pillion (dir. Harry Lighton)
Sirât (dir. Oliver Laxe)
Wild Foxes (dir. Valery Carnoy)
The President’s Cake (dir. Hasan Hadi)
Left-Handed Girl (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou)
Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
Die, My Love (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater)
Renoir (dir. Chie Hayakawa)
Once Upon a Time in Gaza (dir. Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser)
The Secret Agent (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Mikaela Smith, Acting Senior Film Programmer
Pillion (dir. Harry Lighton)
When I first heard that there would be a Harry Melling x Alexander Skarsgård BDSM Biker romance, I didn’t know what to expect. However, I didn’t expect to laugh out loud quite so much, and I definitely didn’t expect to cry. In his debut feature, Harry Lighton has delivered something quite loveable – a charming, disarming British rom-com, laced with a healthy dose of kink, and grounded with a really big heart.
Harry Melling is brilliant as Colin, a sort of bumbling, unsure young man who hasn’t quite found his feet. Still living at home with parents despite being in his thirties, he is distinctly inexperienced in sex and romance, and naive in a way that feels almost enchanting. When he meets Ray, an impressively handsome, enigmatic, leather-clad biker (Skarsgård), a brief hook-up develops into a complex dom-sub relationship that begins an arc of self-discovery for Colin.
What really struck me about the film was the way it depicted this broader community of kinky, queer bikers. I found myself totally drawn in by their unlikely brotherhood, and I felt that Lighton’s ability to show what it’s like to be swept into a subculture and feel like you’ve found your people, pulsed a refreshing, lively current into the film.
Pillion will be released in the UK by Picturehouse Entertainment.
Duncan Carson, Projects and Business Manager
Sirât (dir. Oliver Laxe)
Absolute silence in the Moroccan desert. Hands clasp speakers and roughly slot them into position, gestures clearly honed over decades of wedging the party wherever it can be placed, legally or otherwise. Slowly, the rave begins in an amphitheatre of stone. Even among the outsider misfits who have rejected their own societies, a middle-aged man and his son stand out. As they work through the crowd, we realise he is seeking his daughter, lost – intentionally or not – in this stateless nomadic subculture. Eventually, he connects with a splinter group who are willing to accept their presence as they go further into the desert to the next rave, evading the military forces who are evacuating the country.
Oliver Laxe’s film continues his method from Fire Will Come (2019) of embedding himself in communities and working with actors whose performances are soaked in their own lifestyle. Part Sorcerer, part Mad Max, part Heart of Darkness, Sirât’s journey into Morocco’s interior is deeply gripping, partly on the basis of its technical excellence and partly from the lived-in performances. Emblematically, a character reveals the mohawk they have been sporting throughout is a length of carpet, and one can almost smell its years-old sweat through the screen. It’s also a film that quietly embeds disability in its characterisation, never labouring why its amputees are seeking hedonism.
There is a moment towards the end of the film where a character is dancing directly in front of a megawatt speaker, the lizard brain soothed while the ears bleed. The pleasures of Sirât felt similar: harsh but mesmerising. The characters in the film are dancing on the titular hair-width path between heaven and hell (as described in Islamic eschatology). If there’s heaven to be found taking the risk, the risks sometimes lead you to hell, and the film plays out that way in its second half. This polarised many of the people I spoke with. Yet no one disputed that it had been one of the most memorable and intense experiences at the cinema they could recall. If Altitude – who acquired rights since the festival for the UK – can reach out to the younger, musical festival friendly audience who will find a lot in its authenticity and narrative stabs, this could be a film with word-of-mouth excitement. Teeth-rattling volume and a shared desire to go on the trip together: this is where raves and cinemas can find a shared ground. (First prize for volume to our showing of Die, My Love where one jump cut volume roar caused my seatmate to scream).
Sirât will be released in the UK by Altitude.
Wild Foxes (dir. Valery Carnoy)
Boxing is statistically the most common subject for sports films, and sports films are more formulaic than most. So it takes something special for the old bruiser to get back in the ring and show off some new fancy footwork. Belgian-French co-production Wild Foxes (La Danse des Renards) has follow-through, ultimately lifting Directors’ Fortnight’s Europa Cinemas label prize (selected by cinema owners and boosted on release in the network) for its debut director Valery Carnoy.
Camille (Samuel Kircher, who also dazzled in Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer) is marking himself out as the rising star at a sports boarding school, aided by the selfless coaching of his fellow pupil Matteo (newcomer Faycal Anaflous). While exploring the woods surrounding the school, he falls from a cliff. Despite being given the all clear by his doctors, Camille can’t shake phantom pain. How can he cope without sport’s stabilising influence?
Like La Petite Dernière (playing in the main competition), Wild Foxes takes familiar material and, through textural specificity, narrative focus and elegant editing, elevates itself above cliché. Just at the moment we expect to see the inciting accident play out in full, we cut to the hospital waiting room, the pain and brotherhood of the moment expressed in Matteo having sacrificed his beloved tracksuit to help his friend. It’s a realistic and sweet film about young masculinity, the surprisingly intimate connections possible between young men and how they can quickly revert to societal form when unsettled. There is plenty of original detail to offer audiences who reliably turn up for boxing films, and those who have no interest in seeing men lump each other for sport (me included).
Wild Foxes will be released in the UK by Conic.
Lily van den Broecke, Senior Manager, Film Hub South East
The President’s Cake (dir. Hasan Hadi)
Winner of the Caméra d’Or and Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, The President’s Cake marks an energetic and poignant debut from Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi. Set in the early 1990s during Saddam Hussein’s regime, the film follows nine-year-old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef), who is – despite her best efforts – chosen by her teacher to bake a cake celebrating the dictator’s birthday. A task fraught with peril in a nation crippled by UN sanctions. With the assistance of her grandmother, friend, a charismatic cockerel and the kindness of strangers, Lamia embarks on a journey from her home in the Mesopotamian marshes to the nearby city. Their quest to procure scarce ingredients unfolds against the backdrop of a society where loyalty is enforced, and scarcity is a daily reality.
The film is visually arresting, offering us a glimpse into floating marsh dwellings of southern Iraq with their starlit waterways and a way of life where boats are the primary mode of transport to school, to the market, for funeral processions. The tenacity of Lamia, her friends and family, and the cast of characters she meets along the way make for the perfect filmic recipe. An absolute standout and one to watch with friends and family alike.
Becky Clarke, Head of Operations
Left-Handed Girl (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou)
Left-Handed Girl is an excellent solo debut feature from Shih-Ching Tsou (Producer of Tangerine and The Florida Project). It is a beautifully nuanced relationship drama about a mother and two daughters who return from the Taiwanese countryside to try and set up a noodle bar and a new life in the dazzling, grimy, humming metropolis of Taipei. Tsou expertly weaves the narratives of the three main characters: I-Jing, the effervescent five-year-old daughter; I-Ann, the aloof older daughter; and Shu-Fen, the industrious yet distant mother, as they try to find their place in these new surroundings and integrate back with their estranged extended family. The story is told through each character’s unique perspective, often feeling like you are seeing, touching, and tasting the bustling city of Taipei. With expertly subtle and mesmerising performances from the three central female actors, Tsou perfectly captures the conflicting emotions of love, drama, pain and humour that come with being part of a family.
The film is co-written, produced and edited by Sean Baker (Anora, Tangerine, The Florida Project), Tsou’s longtime creative partner. It will likely appeal to audiences of their earlier work but also to fans of restrained family dramas.
David Williams, Film Hub South East Officer
Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value sees him reteam with The Worst Person in the World star Renate Reinsve, this time to explore familial estrangement, sisterhood, connection through art, and generational trauma. Stellan Skarsgård plays an aloof patriarch attempting to reach out to his daughter by presenting her with a screenplay written with her in mind. He’s forcefully rebuffed, which leads him to pursue the project with another actor (played charmingly by Elle Fanning). The film is equal parts poignant and playful — an amusingly inappropriate birthday gift from Skarsgård’s character earned a rare mid-movie applause at Cannes — the tonal balance creating a truly satisfying viewing experience.
Sentimental Love will be released in the UK by MUBI.
Die, My Love (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
The fifth feature from Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, Die, My Love sees Jennifer Lawrence play a new mother experiencing post-partum depression. Sought out by producer Martin Scorsese, Lawrence is sensational in the role, consistently channelling frustration, fury, desperation and disillusionment, without the character ever feeling defined solely by her mental health. Co-star Robert Pattinson also gives a strong performance, with what he’s described as “way more of a normal guy” than he’s used to portraying. He matches Lawrence’s rambunctious energy perfectly when needed, otherwise alternating between being a counterpoint for her more erratic behaviour and a catalyst for it. Ramsay expertly presents overwhelming sights and sounds that root the audience firmly in the lead’s perspective — you’ll never be more eager for a dog to stop barking.
Die, My Love will be released in the UK by MUBI.
Catharine Des Forges, ICO Director
Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater)
It’s Paris in 1959 and a collection of young film critics and creatives coalesce around the influential journal Cahiers du Cinema, which has produced some dazzling new talents in cinema including Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol and given rise to the ‘New Wave’ in French cinema. Yet to make a film is Jean-Luc Godard, a magnetic mix of confidence, arrogance and frustration with a belief that all he needs to make a film is a girl and a gun.
Linklater’s depiction of the making of Godard’s classic À bout de souffle is shot lovingly in black and white and Academy Ratio. It follows Godard on his legendary 22-day shoot as he gathers up his collaborators, cajoles, persuades and infuriates them, ultimately producing a cinematic masterpiece.
This is a film for people who love cinema as Linklater does, and its pleasures lie in its boundless joie de vivre and the supporting players in the story, featuring everyone from Agnes Varda, to Jean-Pierre Melville and Roberto Rossellini. Whether you are familiar with À bout de souffle or not, you will be keen to seek out the original after seeing all the creative solutions the team originated (out of necessity) and the real Belmondo and Seberg in their iconic roles.
Ultimately, Linklater reminds us that these were a group of young people in their twenties who were full of creativity and boundless confidence at the top of their game, who changed cinema and influenced other artists for years to come. It’s a film that should appeal to both a younger and older demographic and is effortlessly enjoyable.
Nouvelle Vague will be released in the UK by Altitude.
James Corr, Projects and Events Officer
Renoir (dir. Chie Hayakawa)
Quiet and restrained films such as Renoir, the second feature film from Plan 75 director Chie Hayakawa, can sometimes find themselves lost in the manic environment that is the Cannes Film Festival. I must admit, the penny didn’t drop for me either until about half an hour left, from which point the emotions started flooding in.
Renoir is a charming portrait of Fuki, a young girl in 1980s Tokyo, as she navigates losing her father to a terminal illness, observing the effects this has on the adults around her. Her relationship with her mother ultimately drives the plot, and along this journey, you see Fuki comprehend what life as an adult is like.
Initially, it was the fragmented way in which the story was told that made me struggle to engage. Hayakawa seemingly bounces us from scene to scene without much to coherently tie them together, other than following the different stages of grief for Fuki and the various adults around her. It later becomes clear that while we’re seeing everything from Fuki’s perspective, the story is presented as if recited by Fuki when she is much older, with each of these moments lingering in her mind because she deems them poignant in some way. When we reflect on past trauma as adults, we don’t get to choose what we remember, and there’s both beauty and sadness in understanding that this grief isn’t current for young Fuki, but rather it is everlasting.
There’s no denying that Renoir is a challenging watch, both in terms of the subject matter and its potential difficulty in engaging with at times. It will undoubtedly be a tough sell for audiences here. That said, personal and impassioned stories about grief have always served as conduits for discussions on the subject, and this film fits that bill nicely. While it hasn’t yet been picked up for distribution in the UK, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that more people will get to see it.
Once Upon a Time in Gaza (dirs. Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser)
If you put Renoir and Once Upon A Time In Gaza on a scale of subtlety, they would be at opposite ends. This is the third feature film from directing twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser, 12 years on from debuting as the first Palestinians to have their film featured at Cannes.
As soon as the opening credits roll, the Nasser brothers go out of their way to ensure you know you’re meant to laugh with them throughout this film, the majority of which follows young Yahya from being a student to operating a falafel stand as a cover for distributing drugs, and ultimately becoming the fictional star of Palestine’s “first action movie.” The film is composed of two distinct halves. Yahya, alongside fellow lead Osama, is captivating as a double act, and the first half unfolds like a road movie, immersing us in the daily lives of Gazans in 2007. The story begins to lose its way in the second half, but the world is so well established that I remained engrossed the entire time.
There’s nothing particularly adventurous from a storytelling perspective, but this allows the film to highlight how it is impossible to tell a ‘normal’ story about ‘normal’ lives in Gaza. Each time the sun sets on another day, another settlement is bombarded, and another building is razed, yet the film doesn’t end. The story continues, as do the lives of the Palestinians who survive in occupied land.
Few films produced and shot in Palestine make their way to international screens, so whilst this doesn’t currently have UK distribution, my hope is that it soon will so that we can encourage more work from the region.
Patrick Stewart, Marketing & Communications Manager
The Secret Agent (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Brazil, 1977. A society labouring under a dictatorship. Our (undercover) guide to the time and place is ‘Armando’ (played by Wagner Moura who deservedly picked up the Best Actor gong at Cannes), a likeable academic fleeing North to his native city of Recife to escape political and professional persecution in the form of a pair of hitmen following orders from a government backed industrialist. Through the resistance network helping him, he finds refuge in a safehouse run by diminutive, elderly, and bursting-with-life Dona Sebastiana (brilliantly performed by Tânia Maria).
As the game of cat and mouse between Armando and the hitmen plays out, we’re introduced to a host of characters and situations that gives an authentic sense of period Brazilian life, as well as flashing forward, in a slightly shaky but ultimately rewarding contemporary subplot, that digests how Brazilian society is (and is not) facing up to the outrages of the period. This is a thoughtful, humorous, and richly composed film, but it also fulfils its promise as a gripping thriller. A potent cocktail that should ensure it has strong appeal to arthouse audiences on release.
The Secret Agent will be released in the UK by MUBI.
For more insights into films from the festival, visit the ICO Instagram profile and watch our Cannes 2025 highlight.
