Director Scarlett Johansson poses during a photocall for the film “Eleanor the Great” in competition for the category Un Certain Regard at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

Scarlett Johansson’s feature directorial debut “Eleanor the Great” earned the Jewish filmmaker and her cast a five-minute standing ovation on Tuesday during its world premiere at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in France.

The film, competing in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes, stars June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Erin Kellyman, and Israeli actress and real-life Holocaust survivor Rita Zohar. “Eleanor the Great” revolves around Eleanor Morgenstein (Squibb), a 94-year-old who moves from Florida to New York after the death of her friend Bessie (Zohar), who was a Holocaust survivor.

In New York, Eleanor stumbles into a support group for Holocaust survivors and decides to join by telling a fake story that captivates Nina (Kellyman), a 19-year-old journalism student who is sitting in on the group. Eleanor is longing for connection and the two women develop a friendship that is based on Eleanor’s deception. Ejiofor plays Nina’s father, and “Breaking Bad” actress Jessica Hecht is Eleanor’s daughter.

“Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut is a comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell,” read a synopsis of the film provided by the Cannes Film Festival.

“It’s a film about many things: it’s about friendship, it’s about grief, it’s about forgiveness. And I think those are all themes that we can use a lot more of these days,” Johansson said at the Cannes premiere of “Eleanor the Great,” according to Variety. “It’s a film that I feel is historic and also very timely now, and so I hope that you all carry it with you the way that I carry Eleanor with me.”

Johansson’s maternal family is Jewish, with roots in Eastern Europe. She discovered in 2017 that she had relatives who died in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.

Johansson previously directed the 2009 short film “These Vagabond Shoes.” She is at Cannes this year also as a cast member of Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” and attended Cannes in 2023 for Anderson’s film “Asteroid City.”

The 2025 edition of the Cannes Film Festival runs from May 13-24.