The Cannes Film Festival will pay tribute to iconic late director Jean-Luc Godard, following his death last September, with a trio of works in its Cannes Classic cinema heritage line-up.

A highlight of the homage will be the world premiere of the 20-minute trailer he created for a film that will never get made: ‘Drôles de Guerres (Phony Wars).

The 20-minute work is billed as A Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello and Vixens production, in coproduction with L’Atelier.

“Jean-Luc Godard often transformed his synopses into aesthetic programs. Phoney Wars follows in this tradition and will remain as the ultimate gesture of cinema,” said the festival.

It quoted the text that accompanies the short work to give an indication of the director’s intention, reading “No longer trusting the billions of diktats of the alphabet to give back their freedom to the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a true language by returning to the places of past shootings, while taking into account the present stories.”

The film will be screened in the presence of Godard’s long-time collaborator, the filmmaker Fabrice Aragno, who worked with the late director on Notre musique (2004), Film Socialisme (2010), Les Trois Désastres (2013) and Goodbye to Language (2014).

The tribute will also feature a screening of Godard’s 1963 classic Contempt and the documentary Godard par Godard.