site.btaActress Maria Bakalova, Director Konstantin Bojanov in Cannes Film Festival Official Selection

Cannes Film Festival General Delegate Thierry Fremaux and Cannes Film Festival President Iris Knobloch announced Thursday the official selection of the 77th edition of the Festival, which will take place between May 14 and 25. The selection includes Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova and director Konstantin Bojanov, Variety reported.

The Apprentice, a biopic directed by Ali Abbasi and starring Romanian American Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Oscar nominee Bakalova as Trump's first wife Ivana, will compete for the Palme d'Or. Other films to compete for the award include Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds, Andrea Arnold's Bird, Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness.

This is not the first time Bakalova has been in the Cannes official selection, as she starred in Women Do Cry directed by Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021.

The Shameless, a French-Swiss-Bulgarian co-production written and directed by Bojanov (known for Ave and Light Thereafter), will be screened as part of the Un Certain Regard section. The film starring Mita Vashisht, Tanmay Dhanania and Auroshikha Dey is about the forbidden love between two girls in a strictly patriarchal community.