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Cannes Film Festival · 2026

Cannes Film Festival 2026

Directors' Fortnight

Programme

28 films · 4 reviews

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9 Temples to Heaven

A family of nine takes their grandmother to 9 temples in 1 day, hoping to prolong her life. But the trip takes an unexpected turn.

(Country: Thailand, Norway, France, Singapore; Year: 2026; Director: Sompot Chidgasornpongse; Stars: Amara Ramnarong, Surachai Ningsanond, Jirawut Chiwaruck, Yaneenan Jiraphatjittrin, Klaichan Phunman, Sompop Songkampol, Sirapop Sanhabhakdi, Yada Karnjanisakorn, Nichmon Shintadapong)

Atonement

Based on a 2012 New Yorker article about a Marine who seeks to reconcile with the survivors of an Iraqi family victimised by his unit years earlier.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Reed Van Dyk; Stars: Boyd Holbrook, Hiam Abbass, Kenneth Branagh)

Butterfly Jam

A teenager helps out in his family’s struggling New Jersey diner specializing in Circassian cuisine. When he’s not working at the restaurant, he’s training to become a professional wrestler. After one of his father’s misguided schemes goes wrong, he is confronted with violence that will force him to grow up faster than he would like.

(Country: Russia, US, France; Year: 2026; Director: Kantemir Balagov; Writer: Marina Stepnova, Kantemir Balagov; Stars: Talha Akdogan, Riley Keough, Barry Keoghan, Harry Melling, Monica Bellucci, Will Fitz, Zaramok Bachok, Michael Kupisk, Princesstorm Woody, Liyah Richards)

Clarissa

A modern reimagining of the Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Chuko Esiri, Arie Esiri; Writer: Chuko Esiri; Stars: Sophie Okonedo, David Oyelowo, India Ria Amarteifio, Ayo Edebiri, Toheeb Jimoh, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Jude Akuwudike, Kehinde Cardoso, Ogranya, Danny Sapani, Fortune Nwafor, Modesinuola Ogundiwin, Joy Sunday, Chioma Omeruah, Joke Silva)

Daughters Of The Late Colonel

After the death of their ill-tempered and controlling father, two middle-aged sisters find themselves at a loss. An unexpected visitor sparks the courage in them to begin their lives anew. Short animation

(Country: UK; Year: 2026; Director: Elizabeth Hobbs; Writer: Elizabeth Hobbs)

Death Has No Master (La Muerte No Tiene Dueño)

Review preview for Death Has No Master

That sense of human frailty – in mind as well as body – which haunts much of European colonial literature is strongly in evidence here.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
In Venezuela, the heiress of a colonial cacao plantation and its entrenched guardians enter a duel for the land, where the only harvest left is violence.

(Country: Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain, Venezuela; Year: 2026; Director: Jorge Thielen Armand; Writer: Jorge Thielen Armand; Stars: Asia Argento, Dogreika Tovar, Jorge Thielen Hedderich, Arturo Rodríguez, Yermain Sequera)

Full review See: Interview with Jorge Thielen Armand about Death Has No Master

The Diary Of A Chambermaid

A young Romanian woman who has come to work for a French family takes part in an amateur theatre troupe preparing an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's Diary Of A Chambermaid.

(Country: France, Romania; Year: 2026; Director: Radu Jude; Writer: Radu Jude; Stars: Ana Dumitrașcu, Vincent Macaigne, Mélanie Thierry, Amélie Prévot, Louve Proust)

Dora

Drama follows a teenage girl over the course of a summer holiday.

(Year: 2028; Director: July Jung; Stars: Kim Do-yeon, Sakura Ando)

Double Freedom (La libertad doble)

Misael, 25 years on from La Libertad, continues to live alone, wielding his axe to fell trees deep in the forest, far from the presence of others. His quiet freedom is disrupted when he’s forced to care for his older sister, and the familiar rhythm of his days in the wilderness begins to unravel

(Country: Chile, Argentina, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Uruguay, UK; Year: 2026; Director: Lisandro Alonso; Writer: Lisandro Alonso; Stars: Misael Saavedra)

Free Eliza

Short.

(Year: 2025; Director: Alexandra Matheou)

Gabin

A young man is torn between loyalty to the family butcher's business and his own dreams.

(Country: France, Germany, Switzerland; Year: 2026; Director: Maxence Voiseux; Writer: Maxence Voiseux)

In Search Of The Grey Bird with Green Stripes

Short film.

(Country: 2026; Director: Saïd Hamich Benlarbi)

I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning

Review preview for I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning

Comes at you like a pint of lager with a Jäger bomb chaser and a packet of crisps – strong, energising, salty and sharp, you feel the headiness and the kick.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Childhood friends Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli, and Conor played together, skipped school together, and dreamt of the lives they would have one day. Now they’re thirty, and the future they imagined is slipping quietly out of reach.

(Country: UK, France, US; Year: 2025; Director: Clio Barnard; Writer: Enda Walsh; Stars: Joe Cole, Anthony Boyle, Lola Petticrew, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack, Millie Brady, Lucie Shorthouse, James Eeles)

Full review

The Joyless Economy

Short.

(Year: 2026; Director: Marjorie Conrad)

Low Expectations (Lave Forventninger)

Review preview for Low Expectations

The plot begins where screenwriting manuals would suggest a cut, in the aimless downtime of everyday life.

Lehel Fazakas · 3.5 out of 5
A successful young artist's career derails, forcing her back to her hometown. While teaching high school to make ends meet, she navigates depression and rediscovers herself in unexpected ways.

(Country: Denmark, Norway; Year: 2026; Director: Eivind Landsvik; Writer: Eivind Landsvik; Stars: Marie Ulven, Anders Danielsen Lie, Tone Mostraum, Embla Berntsen, Snorre Kinf Monsson, Clara Dessau)

Full review

Madrugada

Short film.

(Year: 2026; Director: Sebastián Lojo)

Nothing Happens After Your Absence

Short.

(Year: 2026; Director: Ibrahim Omar)

Oh Boys

In a coastal village obsessed with standing out, a young saxophonist takes a different path.

(Country: Italy, UK; Year: 2026; Director: Antonio Donato; Writer: Antonio Donato; Stars: Tom Byrne, Luca Lacerenza, Antonio De Rosa, Meg Bellamy)

Once Upon A Time In Harlem

A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: William Greaves, David Greaves)

La Perra

On a remote southern Chilean island, Silvia, a solitary middle-aged woman with a painful past, rescues an abandoned puppy and names him for the daughter she never had. As their bond deepens, Silvia pours all of herself into trying to set right a destiny she long believed beyond repair.

(Country: Chile, Brazil; Year: 2026; Director: Dominga Sotomayor; Writer: Inés Bortagaray; Stars: Manuela Oyarzún, Selton Mello, Paula Luchsinger, Giannina Fruttero, Paula Dinamarca, David Gaete)

Pithead

Amidst an icy dreamscape, a woman takes refuge in a black metal karaoke bar. Outside, she finds a lone penguin stranded in a tree, cut off from its colony.

(Country: Belgium, France; Year: 2023; Director: Wannes Vanspauwen, Pol De Plecker; Writer: Wannes Vanspauwen, Pol De Plecker; Stars: Fumiyo Ikeda, Joeri Happel, David Mutamba, Kirsten Pieters, Sakis Brönnimann, Charles Dhondt)

Shana

Shana is 25, and after yet another disappointment with a boyfriend, she decides to get on with her life. But when she misses her grandmother's funeral, everything goes haywire.

(Country: France; Year: 2026; Director: Lila Pinell; Writer: Lila Pinell; Stars: Eva Huault, Noémie Lvovsky, Sékouba Doucouré, Palachandiran Thyshaant, Inès Trabendo, Agnès Host, Ines Anane, Jacky Abdillah, Lalla Rami)

Sri

Short drama about a rice field sale.

(Country: Indonesia; Year: 2026; Director: Muhammad Fikri Nuryasin; Writer: Anggi Amara, Anggi Amara; Stars: Ana Siti Mutmainah, Rizwan Fadilah, Andri Supriatna, Jajat Sudrajat, Iing Solehin, Ebod Espede)

Thanks for Coming (Merci d'être venu)

Documentary diary tied to Directors' Fortnight.

(Year: 2026; Director: Alain Cavalier)

Too Many Beasts

Wild boars lead to a clash between farmers and the members of a hunting club and a disappearance... but when a police officer comes to investigate, he is pushed to the edge.

(Country: Germany, France; Year: 2026; Director: Sarah Arnold; Writer: Sarah Arnold, Olivier Séror, Jérémie Dubois; Stars: Alexis Manenti, Ella Rumpf, Vincent Dedienne, Jean-Louis Coulloc'h, Xavier de Guillebon, Pascal Rénéric, Bertrand Belin, Thierry Godard, Jacques Develay)

See: Interview with Alexis Manenti about Flesh And Fuel and Too Many Beasts

Vertiginous (Le Vertige)

Jacques goes to his friend Bruno's house to tell him some big news: the entire human race is living in a simulation...

(Year: 2026; Director: Quentin Dupieux; Writer: Quentin Dupieux; Stars: Alain Chabat, Jonathan Cohen, Anaïs Demoustier, Jean-Marie Winling)

Viva Carmen (Love Is a Gypsy Child: A Carmen Story)

Andalusia, Spain, 1840. After three years of wandering, Salva, who works as an assistant to a blind knife sharpener, returns to Seville, his hometown, where he meets Carmen, a gypsy woman with a captivating voice.

(Country: Finland, France, Spain; Year: 2026; Director: Sébastien Laudenbach; Writer: Santiago Otheguy, Sébastien Laudenbach; Stars: Camélia Jordana, Milo Machado-Graner, Soumaye Bocoum, Carl Malapa, Fehdi Bendjima)

We Are Aliens

Review preview for We Are Aliens

Small movements – the awkwardness of a child shrinking into himself, the hesitation before speaking, the forced confidence of fitting in – gain an almost painful realism.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
The story follows Tsubasa, a quiet boy, and Akitarō, a child prodigy. Jealousy and misunderstanding sever their childhood bond. Years later, as their lives take different directions, each must make a decision when the weight of the past resurfaces.

(Country: Japan, France; Year: 2026; Director: Kouhei Kadowaki; Writer: Kouhei Kadowaki; Stars: Ryota Bando, Amane Okayama)

Full review