Lynne Ramsay’s new film to screen in competition at Cannes 2017

The new film from Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here, will be playing in competition at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, and backed with National Lottery funding through the BFI Film Fund, Ramsay’s film is adapted from a novella of the same name by the American author Jonathan Ames. It tells the story of a war veteran who attempts to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring.

Among the most celebrated of contemporary British directors, Ramsay has regularly had her work featured in Cannes, winning jury prizes twice for her short films Small Deaths (1996) and Gasman (1998). Her debut feature, Ratcatcher, won a special mention in Un Certain Regard in 2000, while her most recent film, We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011), also competed for the Palme d’or.

“Lynne Ramsay is an artist at the height of her powers,” says Lizzie Francke, Senior Development and Production Executive at the BFI Film Fund. “You Were Never Really Here is an extraordinary, beautiful and poignant work of cinema. We are totally delighted for her and the team behind it that Cannes Film Festival has embraced the film so.”

This year the competition consists of 18 films. Other filmmakers competing for the Palme d’or include Andrey Zvyagintsev, François Ozon, Sergei Loznitsa, Yorgos Lanthimos, Naomi Kawase, Hong Sang-soo, Todd Haynes, Michael Haneke, Sofia Coppola, Boon Jong-ho, Fatih Akin, Arnaud Desplechin and Noah Baumbach.