IN WHAT looks to be another promising year, Cannes Film Festival announced the line-up for its 77th edition. A selection showing once again it’s a festival that hasn’t stopped being political — political through the movies it shows, but also through the voices of artists who express themselves freely. This year Cannes seems intent on keeping its position as the pre-eminent festival, offering shelter and glory to directors unappreciated in their own country. Overall, it is interesting to notice how geopolitical turmoil shapes the Official Selection.  

Nineteen films will compete for the Palme D’Or, among them British director Andrea Arnold’s Bird, her fourth to be selected for competition. Little is known about the project filmed in the Kent area last summer, but it will, like much of Arnold’s work examine life on the fringes of society; her previous titles, Red Road, Fish Tank, concerned poverty and social alienation, while the last, American Honey offered a critique of capital in which it becomes apparent that the system is beyond repair.

Arnold is a filmmaker in the tradition of “stark” Brit social realists like Ken Loach and Alan Clarke. We hope she will be garlanded.