Watch trailer for Sofia Coppola’s Palme d’Or contender ‘The Beguiled’

Focus Features has debuted a new trailer for Sofia Coppola’s upcoming thriller The Beguiled, set to compete for the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival this month.

The film is set in Virginia during the civil war, as a wounded Union soldier arrives at a school for young girls, protected from the horrors of the outside world.

The Beguiled is based on Thomas P. Cullinan’s southern gothic novel of the same name, originally published in 1966 as A Painted Devil.

This isn’t the first adaptation of Cullinan’s work. 1971 saw a take on The Beguiled from Don Siegel’s (Escape from Alcatraz) starring Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino) and Geraldine Page (The Trip to Bountiful) and told primarily from the perspective of the soldier.

This year’s adaptation from Coppola (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette), however, will shift the narrative over to the women, as she weaves an intricate story of “sexual tension, dangerous rivalries, and broken taboos.”

The Beguiled stars Nicole Kidman (The Others, Moulin Rouge!, Eyes Wide Shut), Colin Farrell (Total Recall, In Bruges, Miami Vice), Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Maleficent) and Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man, Melancholia, Wimbledon).

Having been selected to compete for the Palme d’Or award at this year’s festival, The Beguiled will face off against other contenders including Wonderstruck, Happy End and You Were Never Really Here, directed by Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and starring Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line).