‘The Most Precious Of Cargoes’ Review: Michel Hazanavicius’ Animated Holocaust Fable Walks A Fine Line – Cannes Film Festival

Brent Lang Executive Editor Emily Blunt is in early talks to star in Steven Spielberg‘s next film. The movie, like all of Spielberg’s productions, is shrouded in secrecy, but it is an “event film,” so think special effects and vast scope.

EXCLUSIVE: After earning an Oscar nomination for her work in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt might have found her next job, with a director who inspired not only Nolan but a generation of filmmakers. While a deal has not closed, sources tell Deadline that Blunt is in early talks to star in Steven Spielberg‘s next film at Universal and Amblin, marking the first time the A-lister has worked with the iconic director.

Hunter Ingram “Masters of the Air” doesn’t fly as high as it does without Anthony Boyle and Nate Mann. No military unit rests on the shoulders of two people, and the Eighth Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group was no different in World War II. Historically known as the Bloody 100th for the tremendous losses it endured, the fearless flyers saw some of the worst action of the war and it did so thousands of feet above the front lines.

Ben Croll After closing out last month’s Cannes competition, Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Most Precious of Cargoes” opened this year’s Annecy Animation Festival on an auspicious note. With French productions accounting for one half of Annecy’s 12 competition slots, the Alpine showcase doubles a show of force for Gallic filmmakers writ large – a fact made all the more impressive given their sector’s relative youth.

Composer Blake Neely called his score for Apple TV+’s Masters of the Air a tribute to his mentor, the late Michael Kamen. Kamen gave Neely his first job as an orchestrator on Band of Brothers, the first in Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ World War II series trilogy.

EXCLUSIVE: Kristen Stewart will make her TV series-starring debut in The Challenger, a limited series in which she’ll play Sally Ride, the astronaut and physicist who became the first American woman to fly in space. She did this as part of a NASA space shuttle astronaut class of 1978 that was the first to be diversified and not comprised of all white men.  

Kristen Stewart has lined up what will be one of her first big television roles.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Dakota Fanning went viral in April for revealing that not only did Tom Cruise gift her a cell phone when she celebrated her 11th birthday on the set of their 2005 movie “War of the Worlds” but that he’s also proceeded to send her a birthday gift every year since. That’s nearly two decades worth of birthday presents, all of which have apparently been shoes. Fanning revealed the specifics of Cruise’s gifting habits during a new interview on Kelly Clarkson’s daytime talk show (via Entertainment Weekly).

The June skies are clear as the Tribeca Festival gathers indie filmmakers from around the globe with a large slate of features and shorts, music, games, TV, audio storytelling and a major addition this year in De Niro Con, a tribute to the prolific actor and Tribeca co-founder.

Jon Burlingame Historical dramas often demand a specific musical approach: Music that suggests the time and place, along with reflecting the (often real-life) characters and the unique circumstances of their lives. Five of the past season’s miniseries featured outstanding scores along these lines. For producers Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, “Masters of the Air” marked the completion of a World War II trilogy (after “Band of Brothers,” about American soldiers in Europe, and “The Pacific,” about Marines in the Pacific theater), and composer Blake Neely worked on all three.

EXCLUSIVE: Global TV and film studio Sister is gearing up for a string of projects to hit the small and big screens and today might well see the launch of its most daring.

Katcy Stephan Diablo Cody and Mason Novick are teaming with Wattpad Webtoon Studios to produce an adaptation of the popular Webtoon webcomic “Death of a Pop Star” as a film. The script will be written by rising screenwriter and producer Isa Mazzei (“Cam,” “Faces of Death,” “How to Blow Up a Pipeline”).

Michel Hazanavicius said that when it came to making his Holocaust feature The Most Precious of Cargoes “the question didn’t even arise” when making it animated. “I would never want to make a live film on this.”

The Artist Oscar winner Michel Hazanavicius returned to the Cannes Competition this evening with animated fairy tale feature The Most Precious of Cargoes. The warm applause for the film inside the Grand Théâtre Lumière went on for 10 minutes.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Of all the films premiering at Cannes this year, “The Most Precious of Cargoes” is both an anomaly (the first animated feature to compete for the Palme d’Or since “Persepolis” in 2007) and the most likely to become a classic. Blending the heavy lines of early-20th-century woodcuts with the gentle pastels of watercolor painting, “The Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius finds a poignant way to address not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but the kinds of kindness that combatted it, crafting an indelible parable destined to be watched and shared by generations to come.

Mark your calendar, Steven Spielberg fans. THR reports that the American auteur’s next film will hit theaters on May 15, 2026, courtesy of Universal and Amblin Entertainment.

Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey have their first “Jurassic World” co-star. THR reports that Rupert Friend is the latest actor cast to star in Gareth Edward‘s upcoming installment.  Friend also joins Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, the only other name on the call sheet, as the film inches closer to its mid-June production start.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Over the last century, the small but mighty island Republic of Malta has cemented itself as an appealing global destination for major film productions, with features such as Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator,” Robert Altaman’s “Popeye,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” shooting there. Scott recently wrapped production on the long-awaited follow-up to his 2000 Roman epic, and the country is prepping for the upcoming shoot of the newest installment of the “Jurassic World” franchise. Speaking with Variety, director and co-founder of Maltese service provider Valletta Pictures, Joshua Cassar Gaspar, said that the requests to film on the island have “come in like crazy” following the U.S.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Michel Hazanavicius, the Oscar-winning director of “The Artist,” makes a first foray into animation with “The Most Precious of Cargoes” which world premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on May 24. Adapted from Jean-Claude Grumberg’s bestselling novel, “The Most Precious of Cargoes” is the first animated feature to vie for a Palme d’Or since Ari Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir” in 2008; and it will be the last movie watched by the competition jury, presided over by Greta Gerwig, before the closing ceremony. Hazanavicius developed the project for years and wrote the script with Grumberg, as well as created the drawings.

Gregg Goldstein These auteurs are ready for their close-up. When Quentin Dupieux’s comedy about an ill-fated film set, “The Second Act,” opened the Cannes Film Festival May 14, it will be just one of several movies about filmmaking and filmmakers to touch down on the Croisette. After all, directors Christophe Honoré, Paul Schrader and Josh Mond are among the other prominent filmmakers who are ready to premiere semi-autobiographical stories.