Five industry plot lines to watch out for at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival

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Wednesday marks the start of the 69th Cannes Film Festival, in which countless journalists, marketers, producers, paparazzi, celebrities, Ferrari aficionados and even a few filmmakers converge to revel in the current state of cinema. While it's impossible to predict what films and faux pas will make headlines over the next 12 days – we can only pray that Lars von Trier shows up at the red carpet wearing heels – here are five industry plot lines to watch out for.

Oscar prognosticator

It might be nine months until the 2017 Academy Award nominations are revealed, but that doesn't change the fact that the awards race starts on the Croisette. While it's not as consistent as the Toronto International Film Festival or the Telluride Film Festival for earmarking Oscar contenders, Cannes is still the world's premier showcase for auteur-driven cinema. Just witness last year's lineup, which included Son of Saul, Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road and Amy.

This year's slate is the festival's strongest in years, at least in terms of awards pedigree. In competition, there are new films from critical darlings Cristian Mungiu (Graduation), Jeff Nichols (Loving), Sean Penn (The Last Face), Pedro Almodovar (Julieta), Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper) and the Dardenne brothers (The Unknown Girl).

Meanwhile, out of competition and in the Directors' Fortnight program are films from heavy hitters Jodie Foster (Money Monster), Pablo Larrain (Neruda), Alejandro Jodorowsky (Endless Poetry), Laura Poitras (Risk) and Steven Spielberg (The BFG, though the fact that this is a children's film might hurt its chances).

Oh yes, and Woody Allen will be there, too, with Café Society. But if you think the Academy will ever again go near as toxic a PR problem as Allen, you're as delusional as the filmmaker himself. (Or, as delusional as he sounded in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview.)

One Palme d'Or to unite them all

Despite the Palme d'Or being the top prize at the top film festival, rarely has the winner been a source of unanimous amour. When Jacques Audiard's Dheepan took the prize last year, for instance, critics were practically readying effigies of jury chiefs Joel and Ethan Coen, so distressed were they that the bloody drama triumphed over something so universally loved and capital-I important as, say, Son of Saul. (Joel Coen, in an attempt to quell the furor, stressed that the decision wasn't made to please the cognoscenti. "This isn't a jury of film critics," the director said at the time. "This is a jury of artists who are looking at the work." That didn't go over well, either.)

Other alleged Palme misfires include 2014's Winter Sleep (over the more widely praised Leviathan), 2008's The Class (over the Mafia epic Gomorrah) and, to some at least, 2009's The White Ribbon (over Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, or Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, or Von Trier's Antichrist, or Audiard's A Prophet – it was a busy year).

This year's Palme jurors, then, have the opportunity to either unite the film world under its own umbrella by choosing whatever emerges as the critical favourite – good money would rest, sight unseen, on Mungiu's Graduation, a drama about a small-town Romanian doctor – or continue to fly their own flag, insurrection be damned.

#CannesSoMale

A cursory scan of this year's lineup reveals a wealth of acclaimed, innovative filmmakers – most of whom happen to be men. While there are three women competing for the Palme (Andrea Arnold, Maren Ade and Nicole Garcia), they represent only 15 per cent of the eligible directors. It's an ever-so-slight boost from last year, when just two women were in competition, but a far cry from the diversity a film festival needs to exhibit in 2016.

Yes, Cannes does feature a number of female filmmakers in its other programs – including Foster, Poitras, sisters Delphine and Muriel Coulin, Maha Haj and Stéphanie Di Giusto – but all of the world's eyes are on those films competing for the Palme, and Cannes knows it.

"In spite of all the appearances, we make no distinction between competition and the other parts of the selection," festival chief Thierry Frémaux said shortly after this year's lineup was announced. Filmmakers around the world would surely disagree.

CanCon on the Croisette

It may not be the halcyon days of 2014, when three Canadians (Xavier Dolan, David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan) were in competition for the Palme, but this year's festival still offers a strong Telefilm-funded contingent.

In competition for the Palme, Dolan is back with his fifth film (and the fourth to premiere at the festival), It's Only the End of the World. Although he's up against formidable filmmakers, Dolan could break through purely on the fact that his white-hot Mommy was passed over in 2014.

Outside of the Palme spotlight, three Canadian artists are hoping to translate Cannes cachet to audience goodwill back home. Both Nathan Morlando's Mean Dreams and Kim Nguyen's Two Lovers and a Bear will screen in the Directors' Fortnight program, while François Jaros's short film Oh What a Wonderful Feeling will premiere in the International Critics' Week program. All eyes will be trained on Nguyen, though, as the Montreal director's 2012 drama War Witch was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Stream a little dream

Just as this January's Sundance Film Festival nearly drowned in a distribution sea change – hello Netflix and Amazon, goodbye most everyone else – the streaming revolution will probably upset Cannes's sales market. Amazon is one step ahead, having already purchased, for a reported $20-million (U.S.) price tag, the festival's opening night film, Allen's Café Society. The company will release the film theatrically before making it available to stream, ensuring that Amazon is beloved by most buyers and sellers, who still place a premium on theatrical distribution. But as streaming services offer increasingly irresistible deals at Cannes and elsewhere, theatrical release might become an asset that is not quite as critical as producers like to think. C'est la vie.