Quentin Dupieux’s new comedy to open the 77th Festival de Cannes

Quentin Dupieux’s Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act), the latest film from the prolific French director and screenwriter, who is also a musician, will open the forthcoming Festival de Cannes. Presented Out of Competition as a world premiere on the Croisette on Tuesday, May 14, this four-part comedy will be released in all French cinemas on the same day.

To launch the festivities of the 77th edition, a daring and unpredictable artist will stride the red carpet at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, surrounded by his entire team.

A filmmaker who embraces freedom – in tone, form and subject – Quentin Dupieux has freed himself from convention through an already extensive body of work (13 feature films in 17 years), establishing the absurd as a genre in its own right and shaking up all the others – of which The Second Act is a perfect case in point!

A road movie set against a backdrop of plastic surgery (Steak), a killer tire (Rubber), cops without crime (Wrong Cops), a director in search of the best scream (Reality), a giant fly trained by thugs (Mandibles), a cellar with time-space powers (Incredible but True)…
Like previous ones, The Second Act shows itself to be a new mise en abyme around acting – already one of the central themes of Yannick and Daaaaaali!

The cast is as prestigious as it is unexpected: Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon and Louis Garrel enter Quentin Dupieux’s zany universe for the first time, while Raphaël Quenard returns for the fourth time, after Mandibles, Smoking Causes Coughing and Yannick. The red carpet promises to be magnificent.

They’ll be joining some of the brightest stars of contemporary French cinema who are part of the Dupieux constellation, including Alain Chabat, Benoît Poelvoorde, Jean Dujardin, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Drucker, Benoît Magimel, Anaïs Demoustier, Vincent Lacoste, Gilles Lellouche, Édouard Baer, and Pio Marmaï.

The Second Act follows Smoking Causes Coughing, presented in 2022 in the Official Selection, Out of Competition.