The World Premiere of Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s new film The Specials, starring Vincent Cassel and Reda Kateb, in Official Selection 2019, will be the Last Screening of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. The Specials was submitted at the last minute to the selection committee.
The Specials is a social comedy reinventing Nakache and Toledano’s world, as in each of their films. Vincent Cassel and Reda Kateb lead a cast of non-professional actors and young autistic teens. The directing puts all the characters on the same level, in a film that acutely evokes social and contemporary issues, where the collective world is once again at the heart of everything : social workers, volunteers, health professionals all striving to take care of autistic teens. As usual, the two filmmakers go all out with their love of humanity, their belief in the life of the group, and humor as the first and ultimate defense in human relationships.
The Specials will be released on October 23 in France.
“This film is more than contemporary and carries great promises for the future,” declares Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate. With The Specials as the Last Screening, and as with the other French films presented in the Official Selection, cinema in 2019 will showcase its ability to talk about cities, streets, shopping centers, filming all the faces of youth, their commitments, their music, the places they live in, their rage for life and their questioning of the world. “
No longer called the “Closing Film,” the “Last Screening”, falls on the evening of the Closing ceremony on Saturday May 25, 2019. Its French name la « Dernière séance » is the same as Peter Bogdanovich’s French title for The Last Picture Show, and Eddy Mitchell’ song. Since last year, the Festival de Cannes has ended on a Saturday and no longer on a Sunday.
The festival said that by renaming the closing film the “Last Screening”, it wishes to reconnect with its tradition of final great screenings, as it had been the case with the memorable nights where were shown Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Thelma and Louise (in the new one, in 1991) or Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote last year.