The Cannes Film Festival officially selected "BlacKkKlansman"—director Spike Lee‘s ("Do the Right Thing") film about a Black detective who infiltrates a Ku Klux Klan chapter—to screen in competition this year. The French festival revealed the full list of 18 films competing for the top prize, the Palme d’Or, today (April 12). 

Lee and co-producer Jordan Peele (“Get Out”) adapted the film from Ron Stallworth’s 2014 memoir "Black Klansman." The Colorado Springs Police Department detective posed as a White supremacist and rose to the senior leadership ranks of the Klan in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the 1970s, sabotaging several cross burnings along the way. 

"BlacKkKlansman" premieres at the festival, which takes place from May 8-19. The Hollywood Reporter noted earlier this week that the film will debut in United States theaters on August 10, marking the (almost) one-year anniversary of the deadly White supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.