By - Amit kumaR Agarwal
Is it just a co-incidence or is there a trend that nearly half of the movies competing for the coveted Palme d'Or at Festival de Cannes this year are set in different decades of the past century!
To put the observation in context, New Wave by American director Richard Linklater is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's debut film Breathless. It was no surprise that the film reserved the loudest cheer from the audience.
No wonder, Nouvelle Vogue (New Wave), the black and white movie about the making of Godard's cult film, some 65 years ago, is touted as one of the forerunners for the top-honors at Cannes 2025.
The film not only recreates the scenes of shooting of Godard's debut feature film, Breathless, in 1960; but also cleverly mixes Godard's radical ideas of filmmaking with famous quotes on art from the famous - like Jean-Paul Sartre and Paul Gaugin.
If this wasn't enough, almost half of the movies in the competition category at Festival de Cannes are set in the last century, dating back to times following the First World War. The favorite theme of the filmmakers it seems, is taking the audience to various decades of the last century. Just have a look at few of the films competing for Palme d'Or -
The story of Sergie Loznitsa's Two Prosecutors is the great purge by Josef Stalin against dissent in the 1937 Soviet Union.
Sound of Falling by German director Mascha Schilinski is a dark story of servitude set in the years following the First World War.
The History of Sound by Oliver Hermanus, blends folk songs, war, and relationships - set in America in 1917.
Another film set in America is Wes Anderson's The Phoneocian Scheme, the story of a business family in the United States in the 1950s.
The Secret Agent by Brazilian Kleber Mendonça Filho is set in 1977 when Brazil was under the military regime.
Fuori by Italian Mario Martone is set in Rome in the 1980s when three women forge a bond while serving time in prison.
Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, is a film about an art heist in Massachusetts in 1970 during the Vietnam War.
The setting of Japanese director Chie Hayakawa's new film, Renoir, that explores the troubled childhood of an 11-year-old witnessing the slow death of her father from cancer, is suburban Tokyo.
Among other films exploring history are Orwell: 2+2=5 by Raoul Peck that examines English novelist George Orwell's publication of his dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949.
Turkish-origin German director Fatih Akin's Amrum set in the final months of the Second World War.
Kamal Jain of Superfine films, a regular at Festival de Cannes for almost two-decades now said, "the fictional films set in the previous years, decades, or even centuries find a ready connect, because issues pertinent then are still so relevant in the present geo-politics".
Will the filmmakers follow suit in Festival de Cannes 2026, let's see!