Two weeks ahead of the official selection’s unveiling on 23 July by Alberto Barbera, uncertainty still reigns over the identity of the French candidates set to world premiere in the 81st Venice Film Festival (running 28 August to 7 September). It has to be said that the artistic director of the Italian gathering has shown far more caution than in previous years when he sent out firm invitations in advance. These days he’s favouring a new "open invitation” concept (creating an official selection without revealing to the film teams the sections in which their works are screening until the public unveiling of the programme). But rumours are rife in the French film industry and patterns do tend to emerge.

For the official competition, whose jury is presided over by Isabelle Huppert (read our news), the film in pole position is believed to be Emmanuel Mouret’s Three Friends [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]. For the record, almost all of the filmmaker’s previous 11 feature films have been presented in the major festivals and their different showcases, ranging from Cannes (his latest movie, Diary of a Fleeting Affair [+lee también:
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entrevista: Emmanuel Mouret
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Other stand-out contenders likely to battle it out for the 2024 Golden Lion are And Their Children After Them [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma, La vallée des fous [+lee también:
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entrevista: Delphine y Muriel Coulin
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French feature films seeking selection in Venice’s other festival line-ups (out of competition, Orizzonti, Giornate degli autori, International Critics’ Week) include Planète B [+lee también:
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entrevista: Aude Léa Rapin
ficha de la película] by Aude Léa Rapin (starring Adèle Exarchopoulos, Souheila Yacoub, India Hair and Jonathan Couzinié), Little Jaffna [+lee también:
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entrevista: Lawrence Valin
ficha de la película] by Lawrence Valin, Call of Water [+lee también:
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entrevista: Élise Otzenberger y Cécile…
ficha de la película] by Elise Otzenberger, My Everything [+lee también:
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entrevista: Anne-Sophie Bailly
ficha de la película] by Anne-Sophie Bailly, Hello Madness by Judith Davis (article) and L'attachement [+lee también:
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entrevista: Carine Tardieu
ficha de la película] by Carine Tardieu.