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The Cannes Film Festival officially announced the selection of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis in Competition at its press conference in Paris on Thursday, confirming Deadline’s scoop from Mike Fleming earlier this week.
Talking to journalists after the press conference, a visibly happy Frémaux expressed his content at having Megalopolis in the festival’s 77th edition.
“Francis Ford Coppola is part of the Cannes family, not only because he got two Palme d’Or, but also he was always quite close to us,” he said in a response to a question from Deadline.
The Cannes delegate general said he had been gently checking in with Coppola over the past year on his progress with Megalopolis.
“He started to edit his film one year ago. As we are talking quite frequently, I was just asking, ‘What about you? What are you doing?’. Then, one day he was in Budapest working on the music and I was not asking about the film because of course it is always complicated and delicate, and he was working,” he recounted.
“Weeks ago, not months ago, he told me, ‘Well I’m finished. Do you want to see it?’ and I said yes and then he accepted my invitation.”
Deadline understands that Coppola was undecided between Cannes and Venice until very late in the day (this week even) but ultimately plumbed for Cannes.
The selection sees Coppola return to Competition for the first time in 45 years since his work in progress version of Apocalypse Now won the Palme d’Or in 1979. It was his second Palme d’Or after The Conversation in 1974.
In between times, the director was president of the competition jury in 1996, while his Buenos Aires-set drama Tetro opened parallel section, Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2009.
Frémaux revealed he met Coppola years before coming the head of Cannes.
“I met him years ago when I was a young movie buff in San Francisco in his home and we never stopped having a relationship,” he said.
He also alluded to Coppola’s close friendship with late producer Paul Rassam and his extended family, including producers Claude Berri and his son Thomas Langmann. Rassam supported Apocalypse Now when it was in financial difficulty in 1977, investing in the film in return for the French rights.
“His relationship with France is very strong and with Cannes,” said Frémaux.
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