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Molly Manning Walker ©️Billy Boyd Cape, Ernst De Geer ©️Per Larsson, Daria Kashcheeva ©️Gabriel Kuchta, Deník N, Danech San ©️Prum Ero, Anastasiia Solonevych ©️DR, Aditya Amhad ©️DR

The 47th session of La Résidence of the Festival

Welcome to Molly, Aditya, Daria, Danech, Ernst and Anastasiia! From March 15 to July 31, 2024, these young filmmakers will work in the heart of Paris on their first or second feature film project. For 4 and a half months, they will benefit from a personalized script development program and a collective program of meetings with directors, professionals and representatives of film institutions.

Find out who the six new faces of La Résidence are.

In the historically rich neighborhood of Paris’s 9th arrondissement, the six new residents took up residence following the last session, comprising Meltse Van Coillie, Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Hao Zhao, Gessica Généus, Andrea Slaviček, Asmae El Moudir. These two sessions will be reunited for the 77th edition of the Festival de Cannes to be held from May 14 to 25.

Since the reorganization of La Résidence in 2022, filmmakers are now selected both by call for applications and by invitation, with Stéphanie Lamome in charge of the project. Created in 2000, La Résidence has played host to over 250 directors from around 60 countries. A number of these directors, invited to the biggest festivals around the world, have had international success: Lucrecia Martel, Kornél Mundruczó, Sebastián Lelio, Antonio Campos, Karim Aïnouz, Jonas Carpignano, etc.

After passing through La Résidence, the Romanian Corneliu Porumboiu received the Caméra d’or in 2006 for 12:08 East of Bucharest, the Mexican director Amat Escalante won the Award for Best Director at Cannes in 2013 with Heli, while his compatriot Michel Franco was awarded the Best Screenplay Award in 2015 for Chronic, screened In Competition.

The Hungarian László Nemes won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2015, as well as the Oscar and Golden Globe for best foreign language film in 2016 for Son of Saul, the Belgian Lukas Dhont got the Caméra d’or in 2018 with Girl, and the Lebanese director Nadine Labaki won the César and the Oscar for best foreign film in 2019 with Capernaum. After having received the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019 with Synonyms, the Israeli director Nadav Lapid won the Jury Prize in Cannes with Ahed’s Knee in 2021. In 2022, the Golden Bear went to a resident from the 2018/2019 class, the Spanish director Carla Simón with Alcarràs.

These few of the most notorious names reflect the effervescence and creativity that the Festival de Cannes has always supported. Through La Résidence, the Festival de Cannes is proud to welcome the future of worldwide creation to Paris.

 ©️Billy Boyd Cape
©️Billy Boyd Cape

Molly Manning Walker

“I am super happy that Cannes continues to support my career. I can’t wait to get writing in Paris. It comes at the perfect time for me after a long press tour. I look forward to being surrounded by other creatives and their ideas.”

Molly Manning Walker is a writer, director and cinematographer based in London. She graduated from the NFTS in 2019 with a master in cinematography. Her first feature film as a cinematographer was the directorial debut of Charlotte Regan – Scrapper, which premiered at Sundance in 2023 and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize. Molly’s directorial debut How To Have Sex premiered at Cannes 2023 in the Un Certain Regard section. It went on to win the Un Certain Regard Prize. Since then, How To Have Sex has gone on to win over twenty awards including the discovery award at the European film awards, best lead performance at the BIFAS. It was nominated for 4 BAFTAS including Best British film and Outstanding Debut. Molly is interested in social commentary films that question the way we live our lives.