Leos Carax’s Annette Follow-Up Lily May B to Shoot Next Year with Jenna Ortega

Do not adjust your sets or fear that you’ve lost consciousness. Marking one of the more intriguing director-actor pairings in God knows how long, Leos Carax has, per Variety, secured Jenna Ortega to lead his next feature (and first since 2021’s Annette) Lily May B, which is expected to roll cameras in spring 2027 under the aegis of Chi-Fou-Mi Productions. Coming out of the Cannes market, the project already has some notable details, namely a synopsis that goes like so:

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl, a young woman and a young boy. They each held a secret too heavy to bear. They met in an end-of-the-world world, and together rode a big motorcycle through empty cities, deserted freeways, immemorial forests. On their journey, they encountered many dangers, but kept going. In search of who they were; in search of a place to B, maybe?”

Adding to the intrigue, Carax said, “Once upon a time, this is what destroyed us, and this is what kept us alive.” By all counts this is not the film he’d been developing with Léa Seydoux and Adam Driver, which was said to “soon” start production around spring of 2024; doubts now emerge about that project’s status in toto, though the director is hardly one to move fast in any known case. Nor does it seem Lily May B will prove a downgrade in ambition: Hugo Sélignac calls the film a “universe” that will have an “A-list cast” announced in September.

See the official concept art (keeping alive Carax’s sacred image of someone riding a motorcycle at night) below: