Since its creation back in 2020, the Cannes Film Festival Résidence has hosted more than 250 directors hailing from around 60 countries, offering a springboard to myriad filmmakers who have gone on to enjoy international success. Among them, we could mention Lucrecia Martel, Corneliu Porumboiu, Amat Escalante, Michel Franco, László Nemes, Lukas Dhont, Nadine Labaki, Nadav Lapid, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Carla Simón, Karim Aïnouz, Rungano Nyoni as well as Payal Kapadia.

Since 15 March, the 49th session of the Cannes Film Festival Résidence has been hosting three female and three male directors in Paris, where they will work (with personalised accompaniment) until 31 July on the writing of the script for their first or second feature film. Standing out amongst them are American filmmaker Constance Tsang (French Touch prize in Critics’ Week in Cannes in 2024 with her debut feature Blue Sun Palace, and who is now developing My Mother and Yours), Hungarian director Flóra Anna Buda (Palme d’or for Best Short Film in Cannes and Crystal award in Annecy in 2023 with 27), and Chinese filmmaker Xiwen Cong (whose short film Banished Love was presented at Cannes 2024 in the La Cinef section and who is developing her debut feature titled Home, Sick).

Also taking part are Italian-Greek director Andrea Gatopoulos (noticed in Directors’ Fortnight in 2022, in Locarno in 2023 and in Venice in 2024 with the short films Happy New Year, Jim, Eschaton Ad and The Eggregores’ Theory, and who has also directed the documentary feature A Stranger Quest), Austrian filmmaker Simon Maria Kubiena (awarded in the Generation programme of the 2022 Berlinale with the short film Blue Noise, selected in the same section in 2023 with Mise à nu, and who is developing his debut feature titled The Flowering of a Chimera) and Brazilian director Rodrigo Ribeyro (awarded by the La Cinef jury in Cannes in 2021 for the short film Cantareira).