#Cannes2019 – The opening for Jim Jarmusch and it’s latest movie: The dead don’t die

Last updated on January 15, 2022

The Cannes Film Festival, this year, chooses, as rarely an opening film that will compete. And for our greatest pleasure, this is the last Jim Jarmush movie, The dead don’t die, which we sensed (article to come on our predictions). Here is the official press release:

The Dead Don’t Die, Jim Jarmusch’s new film, will be screened at the Opening, and in Competition – a world premiere. 

The 72nd International Film Festival will open with the Competition screening of Jim Jarmusch’s new film, The Dead Don’t Die. On Tuesday May 14th, on the screen of the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the film by the American director and screenwriter will be this year’s first Palme d’Or competition screening. 

In the sleepy small town of Centerville, something is not quite right. The moon hangs large and low in the sky, the hours of daylight are becoming unpredictable and animals are beginning to exhibit unusual behaviors.  No one quite knows why. News reports are scary and scientists are concerned.  But no one foresees the strangest and most dangerous repercussion that will soon start plaguing Centerville:  THE DEAD DON’T DIE – they rise from their graves and savagely attack and feast on the living – and the citizens of the town must battle for their survival.  

The independent filmmaker’s newest foray into genre film (after the western with Dead Man, Samurai-crime film with Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and his vampire film,Only Lovers Left Alive) promises to be “the greatest zombie cast ever disassembled”: Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Selena Gomez, RZA, Sara Driver, Austin Butler, Luka Sabbat, Eszter Balint, Carol Kane and Tom Waits. 

The Dead Don’t Die also reunites Jarmusch with many of his frequent collaborators including Director of Photography Frederick Elmes (Night on Earth, Paterson, Broken Flowers) and Editor Affonso Gonçalves (Only Lovers Left Alive, Paterson).  The Dead Don’t Die is Jim Jarmusch’s thirteenth feature film and stands as not just a humorous and sometimes scary subversion of the genre (with a nod to George Romero’s seminal film, Night of the Living Dead) but also a tribute to cinema itself.   

Since Stranger Than Paradise, Caméra d’or winner at the Festival de Cannes in 1984, which was a landmark in the history of new independent American cinema, Jim Jarmusch has been sharing with us his artful, soulful universes, inspired soundtracks, offbeat humour, and the meanderings of his anti-heroes in an always slightly strange world. At Cannes, his elegant, rock and roll cinema, often presenting an alternative America, has been honoured with four awards, including the Short Film Palme d’or in 1993 for Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California and the Grand Prix in 2005 forBroken Flowers.

In 2016, Jim Jarmusch had two films in the Official Selection: Paterson with Golshifteh Farahani and Adam Driver, in Competition, and Gimme Danger, the music documentary on Iggy and the Stooges, as part of the Midnight Screenings.

The film will be released in France on the same day as its Cannes screening in the evening of May 14th, in the United States on June 14th 2019 and then worldwide.

The Opening Ceremony of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival will take place on May 14th 2019.