With the preview screenings of its Official Selection, the Festival de Cannes traditionally offers privileged moments of dialogue and public discussions with the greatest figures of today’s cinema.

This year’s program features 4 exceptional artists for 3 highly anticipated talks.

Rendez-vous with…Christopher McQuarrie

Wednesday May 14 at 12:30 pm – Salle Debussy

© Antonio Olmos
After presenting Top Gun in 2022 as its producer, Christopher McQuarrie is back to present Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning as its director. While in Cannes, Christopher McQuarrie will meet with audiences. Oscar-winning screenwriter for Bryan Singer’s Usual Suspect, talented director of Jack Reacher and 4 episodes of the Mission: Impossible saga, Christopher McQuarrie has made thrillers his trademark and action cinema the work of a master craftsman. Because this is the kind of cinema that fascinates cinephiles, listening to him talk about his craft, his world and his projects will be all the more valuable. This session will highlight the mastery and choreographed precision of his direction, which blossoms with the outstanding acting of Tom Cruise at the top of his game.

Rendez-vous with…Robert De Niro

Wednesday May 14 at 3:15 pm – Salle Debussy

There are faces that stand in for the 7th Art, and lines of dialogue that leave an indelible mark on cinephilia. The actor, director, producer and artist-activist has become a cinematic legend, with his emblematic, interiorized style, which surfaces in a gentle smile or a harsh gaze. This is why the Festival de Cannes has decided to present him with an honorary Palme d’or on opening night. Throughout his filmography, Robert De Niro has expressed the violence of American society in all its subtleties and ambiguities: organized crime taking the place of the state, the trauma of the Vietnam War and the manipulation of a country by the culture of entertainment. His public-speaking appearances are particularly rare, and this meeting with festival-goers promises to be one of the highlights of the 2025 Festival. The meeting will be hosted by artist JR, a friend of Robert De Niro who has been making a highly personal film with him for several years.

Rendez-vous with…Alexandre Desplat & Guillermo del Toro

A music lesson in partnership with SACEM.

Sunday May 18 at 2:00 pm – Salle Buñuel

Hosted by Stéphane Lerouge, this dialogue between composer and filmmaker will take us behind the scenes of musical creation, and plunge us into the heart of the workings of an essential pairing in contemporary cinema. They will explain why music is an essential dimension of a cinematographic work, and why the composer is one of a film’s auteurs. They will also explain how music finds equivalents for materials such as water, for The Shape of Water in 2017, or wood for Pinocchio in 2022, and how music can reveal the human side of monsters with Frankenstein, scheduled for release in autumn 2025. Alexandre Desplat scored two films in Competition this year, Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme and Tarik Saleh’s Eagles of the Republic.