Festival de Cannes 2025, La Petite Dernière and Eddington

In the running for the Palme d’Or or an award on the Cannes Film Festival 2025 lineup, La Petite Dernière by Hafsia Herzi and Eddington by Ari Aster.

The team of Eddington ©YesICannes.com

Eddington: the competition for the Palme d’Or and the awards presented La Petite Dernière by Hafsia Herzi and Eddington by Ari Aster. Before becoming a director and presenting her first film in competition, Hafsia Herzi walked the steps of the Cannes Film Festival as an actress in La Source des femmes, L’Apollonide, and Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo, before being awarded the César for Best Actress this year. In Competition for the first time as well, Ari Aster signs with Eddington a psychological western set in a small town in New Mexico, bringing together Emma Stone and Austin Butler. Screened in Special Session, the documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender unveils the extraordinary life of the rock star, his family, his friends, and the faith that challenged and supported him, revealing the personal stories that have marked his journey as a son, father, husband, and activist.

La Petite Dernière ©June Film, Katuh

La Petite Dernière, a vibrant family portrait

La Petite Dernière marks a new milestone in the journey of the talented Hafsia Herzi. After Tu mérites un amour, her first self-produced feature film, and Bonne mère, Ensemble Prize at Un Certain Regard in 2021, the French director returns with a deeply personal and universal film, exploring the complex dynamics of a Maghrebian-origin family facing illness and transmission. Based on Fatima Daas‘s debut novel, the film immerses us in the heart of a close-knit family but one beset by latent tensions, gathered around their mother, a loving and strong figure whose health is declining. Through the eyes of Fatima (Nadia Melliti), La Petite Dernière sensitively observes the reactions, the unspoken words, the tender gestures, and the disputes that mark this delicate period. The screenplay, co-written by Hafsia Herzi, is of great finesse. It explores the themes of lineage, memory, the weight of traditions, and the difficulty of letting go of a loved one. The dialogues sound genuine, often improvised, giving an impression of spontaneity and truthfulness to the exchanges between family members. Each character is sketched with nuance, with their strengths and weaknesses, their fears and hopes.

©June

Poignant beauty of everyday

Hafsia Herzi excels at creating an intimate and authentic atmosphere. The camera gets close to the characters, (including Louis Memmi and Park Ji-Min), capturing their raw emotions, their eloquent silences, and their fleeting moments of complicity. The film depicts with rare accuracy the daily life of a family confronted with the inevitable, without ever falling into melodrama or excessive pathos. The title of the film takes on its full meaning in the way Hafsia Herzi explores each person’s place within the family, particularly that of the “little one,” often seen as the most fragile or the most cherished. The film questions family roles, expectations, and how each person faces loss in their own way. Modest and delicate, the direction favors close-ups on faces, affectionate gestures, and looks filled with emotion. Natural light and simple sets contribute to the authenticity of the story. The director manages to find poignant beauty in the everyday and in moments of vulnerability to deliver a touching work that resonates long after the screening!

©DR

Eddington, horrific western

One of the most anticipated titles of this edition, Eddington, sees Ari Aster tackle the western genre this time, but with mobile phones (iPhone) and in his own unique way, offering an experience that is both familiar and radically new for his visceral and profoundly disturbing explorations of the human psyche through the lens of horror. Revealed in 2018 with Hereditary, Ari Aster has established himself in just a few films as one of the new masters of psychological horror. In a small mining town in New Mexico – Eddington – as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates tensions, the local sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) wants to become mayor and clashes Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), the charismatic mayor. The confrontation will ignite the powder keg, turning the residents against each other and plunging the community into a spiral of chaos. If the setting and costumes evoke the classic western, the atmosphere is immediately charged with a dull tension, a palpable unease that foreshadows the horror to come. The photography, often dark and grainy, reinforces the feeling of isolation and threat that hangs over Eddington.

Eddington ©DR

Intense cinematic experience

The screenplay, written by Aster himself, does not merely revisit the codes of the western. He twists them, subverts them, and infuses them with elements unique to his universe: a brutal exploration of violence, characters confronted with dark and uncontrollable forces, and a deep dive into the human psyche in the face of fear and madness. Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Joaquin Phoenix, and Pedro Pascal deliver performances that meet the high standards of Aster’s cinema. As violence and despair descend upon the city, their faces, often filmed in close-up, convey the terror, paranoia, and moral disintegration that grip the inhabitants of Eddington. The soundtrack, often a key element in Aster’s films, contributes to the oppressive and distressing atmosphere of Eddington. The film will leave no one indifferent. This horrific western is an intense, disturbing, and potentially memorable cinematic experience. If you’re ready to venture into a nightmarish Wild West and confront the uncompromising vision of a bold filmmaker, Eddington is a must-see!