Festival de Cannes 2023, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

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The competition continues with two films, Jeunesse by Wang Bing and Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, while Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny creates a sensation on the Croisette.

The team of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ©YesICannes.com

Festival de Cannes 2023 : the competition for the Palme d’Or saw the screening of Jeunesse (Spring) by Wang Bing and Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire. But the event of the day was the world premiere of the latest opus in the saga created by George Lucas in 1981: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, by James Mangold which caused a sensation on the Croisette, so great is the infatuation for the legendary hero played by Harrison Ford. The Festival also paid an exceptional tribute to Harrison Ford for his entire career.

Jeunesse (Spring) © Gladys Glover – House on Fire – CS Production – ARTE France Cinéma – Les Films Fauves – Volya Films

La Chine ouvrière de Wang Bing

Youth (Spring) is a documentary by the master of observation Wang Bing. This is the first time the Chinese director is competing for the Palme d’Or, five years after Dead Souls, presented in a Special Screening, and four days before the presentation of his other film, Man in Black, in the same category.

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Zhili, located 150 kilometres from Shanghai, is a city dedicated to textile manufacturing. Driven by the desire for a better life, young people flock here from all the rural regions crossed by the Yangtze River. They are twenty years old, sharing dormitories, eating in the corridors. They work tirelessly to be able to raise a child one day, buy a house or set up their own workshop. Between them, friendships and love affairs are made and unmade according to the seasons, bankruptcies and family pressures.

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Black Flies © David Ungaro

Black Flies, the violence of the street

Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, is the adaptation of the novel 911 by American noir author Shannon Burke, which tells the story of the daily hell of two New York ambulance drivers. In this film in Competition with Tye Sheridan and Sean Penn in the main roles, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire was inspired by a part of his life when he was an ambulance driver in the tumultuous New York of the 1990s. After the child soldier Johnny Mad Dog, an adaptation of the novel Johnny chien méchant by Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongala (Un Certain Regard, 2008) and the violent and thwarted story of the young boxer Billy Moore (A Prayer Before Dawn, Out of Competition, 2017), the French director signs a thriller that highlights the reality of street violence.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ©LucasFilms

Indiana hangs up the whip

Created by George Lucas, the series of hair-raising adventures of the famous archaeology professor Dr Henry Walton – aka Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford – comes to an end with the fifth instalment The Dial of Destiny. The archaeologist with the hat and whip and the destructive punch of villains returns to the Croisette 15 years after the 2008 presentation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. A host of stars walked up the Red Steps around Harrison Ford: Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore and Mads Mikkelsen…

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Indiana Jones celebrates its 40th anniversary

The first four films: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) were directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by George Lucas who wrote the scripts. The Dial of Destiny was directed and co-written by American director and screenwriter James Mangold, who returns to Cannes 28 years after his first film, Heavy, was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight. Harrison Ford received a Palme d’honneur for lifetime achievement; last year, Cannes celebrated Top Gun Maverick and Tom Cruise in a similar fashion.

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In search of the grail

It’s 1969, and America is excited about the space race. The world’s favourite archaeological adventurer is worried that the US government has recruited former Nazis to help it beat the Soviet Union in the space conquest. Now that he has retired, his goddaughter Helena Shaw reminds him that Indy and her father made an extraordinary discovery on a train during the war: a dial that could change the course of history. Jürgen Voller, a member of NASA and a former Nazi involved in the moon landing programme, goes looking for it too.

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