The lineup for this year’s Cannes Film Festival is as stacked with auteurs as ever, with films by Clair Denis, David Cronenberg, James Gray, and more. But for my money, the most anticipated project is Broker, by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. Readers of this site know by now that he’s my favorite director working today, but even if he wasn’t, his track record at Cannes more than speaks for itself.
Kore-eda chose a plot that many here in the States simply won’t understand, culturally. It involves baby-boxes, literal dropboxes in which people can anonymously abandon newborn babies for others to care for.
The film features Parasite star Song Kang-ho, Cloud Atlas actress Bae Doona, Peninsula actor Gang Dong-won and South Korean singer IU.
This will be Kore-eda’s first film at Cannes since winning the Palme d’Or with 2018’s Shoplifters. He also won the Jury Prize in 2013 with Like Father, Like Son, and earned acclaim at the festival with After the Storm and Our Little Sister. Kore-eda’s most recent film was the family drama The Truth, which marked his first film outside of Japan and not in his native language. It wasn’t my favorite, let’s put it that way.
Broker will open in the U.S. this June.
