Festival director Thierry Frémaux and festival president Iris Knobloch announced the majority of the titles earlier today, from the Pathe Palace in Paris and there are some surprises, mostly from the films left out… so far.
If the crocuses are sprouting and the birds are chirping, it must be spring. Yet nothing says “primavera!” to this Italian expat, lover of cinema as much as the Festival de Cannes announcement.
While my fellow Italians seem to have been mostly left out of the Official Selection, in a year of great Italian cinema, a lot of cool titles were announced. Kicking off the press conference, Cannes president Iris Knobloch said: “We are gathering at a time of great uncertainty, and some are questioning what the point of movies is. But Cannes was born at such a time in 1939 [reborn after the war in 1946, as Thierry later pointed out], and that’s the reason it was created. It was not a luxury then it was a necessity, when the world is getting darker showing features from all over the world is to defend what mankind has at its best — its capacity to dream, think and feel freely.” She added, “cinema doesn’t require us to agree, it invites us to be present.”
Knobloch also addressed the advent of AI, which is affecting our profession as journalists but also more and more the creative process of filmmakers. “AI knows how to imitate very well,” she wisely said, “but will never know how to feel.” With class, she also thanked the journalists present in the room, adding that she considers us, along with the filmmakers of course, “part and parcel of the festival as much as we are.”
Thierry Frémaux made a few political statements, hidden as part of the announcement, including a mention to a French journalist killed in Ukraine, but zero mentions of the multiple Arab journos killed in action in the past three years, and talked about Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose latest Minotaur is set to premiere in Competition, as having left his country before their aggression on their neighbor. Not a peep was uttered about Israel invading Palestine, Iran and Lebanon, and the chaos they are leaving behind — if they ever do leave.
But I digress. Frémaux also seemed visibly bitter that studios have forsaken his festival, where recently titles have world premiered to lukewarm reviews and gone on to flounder at the box office as a result, in favor of world premieres in NYC, LA, London or even Mexico City. He reinforced the importance of Cannes by saying the following, after indicating that they had received a record 2,541 movies from 141 countries, something close to “Olympic figures” according to Frémaux. They are “driven by the desire to show films in a place where they can be seen by all the world, and the whole world is coming for 2 weeks in Cannes to say that cinema is a living art,” the festival director pointed out.
As previously announced, Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook will preside over the jury while Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand will receive the honorary Palme d’Or, with more honors and titles to be announced in the next weeks.
Among the titles on my personal must-watch list is Moroccan helmer Laïla Marrakchi’s La Mas Dulce (Strawberries) which I’ve followed for a while in my writing, and which will world premiere in Un Certain Regard.
A Lebanese title is also in UCR and it is Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep by Rakan Mayasi, while American filmmaker Jordan Firstman debuts on the Croisette with Club Kid starring Cara Delevingne.
In the Special Screenings, Avedon a doc on legendary photographer Richard Avedon will screen, directed by Ron Howard of all people! I will be in line for that one, early in the morning and online, of course, as the festival has been operating in assigning tickets since the Pandemic.
In Cannes Premiere, a special couture selection which screens each evening in the Debussy, John Travolta’s directorial debut will premiere, titled Propeller One-Way Night Coach. The film is a sixty minutes recounting of the aviation fanatic’s first flight on TWA as a child.
Out of Competition two titles stand out, one is Her Private Hell, an upcoming thriller film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and Andy Garcia’s directorial debut, Diamond an American crime drama written, produced, and directed by Garcia, in which he stars alongside Vicky Krieps, Brendan Fraser, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Demián Bichir, Danny Huston and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.
Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler in a still from ‘Fatherland’
In Competition, Fatherland by Pawel Pawlikowski is a no-brainer for me, as it chronicles the return of Thomas Mann in Germany after the war to receive the Goethe award. As the granddaughter of a German author who never stepped foot on his homeland after leaving in the early 1930s, I crave watching this film for all it will explain.
Fjord is an upcoming drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Cristian Mungiu. The film stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a Romanian-Norwegian couple who face scrutiny after moving to the wife's remote Norwegian hometown. Gentle Monster directed by Marie Kreutzer stars Léa Seydoux and Catherine Deneuve, two women who make watching a film an out-of-body experience.
And while on the subject of women, there are fewer women directors in the line up that ever before in Cannes, and Frémaux admitted this, by saying “there are five women movie makers in Competition — 25% not a high number but in Competition it is… “ I’ll add, or is it? Whatever happened to 5050 by 2020, remember those women on the steps of the Palais?
Cannes darling Lukas Dhont is back with his latest Coward, as is Iranian helmer Asghar Farhadi with Parallel Tales and Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar unveils his latest Bitter Christmas on the Croisette. And while the US studios might not drop by, one great American will, so far, in the form of Ira Sachs, with his operatic AIDS story The Man I Love.
Farhadi’s film will feature Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Catherine Deneuve, Pierre Niney, and Adam Bessa in a a loose remake of of the late Krzysztof Kieślowski’s sixth “Dekalog” chapter, moved to Paris in the Iranian helmer’s version.
Almodovar’s last venture was theatrically released in Spain on 20 March 2026 by Warner Bros. Pictures but will enjoy its international premiere in Cannes.
Here are all the titles
Competition
Minotaur, Andrey Zvyagintsev
El Ser Querido, Rodrigo Sorogoyen
The Man I Love, Ira Sachs
Fatherland, Pawel Pawlikowski
Moulin, Laszlo Nemes
Stories Of The Night, Lea Mysius
Fjord, Cristian Mungiu
Notre Salut, Emmanuel Marre
Gentle Monster, Marie Kreutzer
Nagi Notes, Koji Fukada
Hope, Na Hong-jin
Sheep In The Box, Hirokazu Kore-eda
Garance, Jeanne Herry
The Unknown, Arthur Harari
Sudden, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
The Dreamed Adventure, Valeska Grisebach
Coward, Lukas Dhont
The Black Ball, Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
Life Of A Woman, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Parallel Tales, Asghar Farhadi
Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodovar
Out of competition
Diamond, Andy Garcia
Nicolas Winding Refn, Her Private Hell
L’Abandon, Vincent Garenq
Karma, Guillaume Canet
L’Objet Du Delit, Agnes Jaoui
L’Âge de fer, Antonin Baudry
The Electric Kiss, Pierre Salvadori
Midnight Screenings
Colony, Yeon Sang-ho
Roma Elastica, Bertrand Mandico
Sanguine, Marion Le Coroller
Full Phil, Quentin Dupieux
Jim Queen, Nicolas Athane, Marco Nguyen
Cannes Premiere
Propeller One-Way Night Coach, John Travolta
The Samurai And The Prisoner, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Heimsuchung, Volker Schlondorff
When The Night Falls, Daniel Auteuil
Special Screenings
John Lennon: The Last Interview, Steven Soderbergh
Avedon, Ron Howard
Les Survivants du Che, Christophe Réveille
Les Matins Merveilleux, Avril Besson
Un Certain Regard
All The Lovers In The Night, Yukiko Sode
Everytime, Sandra Wollner
I Am Always Your Maternal Animal, Valentina Maurel
I’ll Be Gone In June, Katharina Rivilis
Yesterday The Eye Didn’t Sleep, Rakan Mayasi
Congo Boy by Rafiki Fariala
The Meltdown, Manuela Martelli
Club Kid, Jordan Firstman
Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun
La Más Dulce, Laïla Marrakchi
Le Corset by Louis Clichy
All images used with permission.