Cannes Critics’ Week, the festival’s parallel section spotlighting first and second features, has revealed the seven competition and four special screenings titles for its 65th edition running May 13-21.
Scroll down for full list of titles
This year’s competition features a majority of five women directors. Artistic director Ava Cahen said she and her selection committee received a record 1,050 films from 106 countries. Among the 11 films that made the cut, nine are first features in the running for the Camera d’Or.
Critics’ Week will open for the first time in its history with an animated film, In Waves, Franco-Vietnamese director Phuong Mai Nguyen’s debut feature about a shy teenager who falls in love with a surfer, then has to navigate a sudden illness. The adaptation of AJ Dungo’s graphic novel passed through last year’s Annecy International Film Festival’s works-in-progress strand. France’s Silex produces the film while Charades is handling sales. The English-language voice cast is led by Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu.
The section will close with another first feature, Felix De Givry’s Adieu Monde Cruel, starring Anatomy Of A Fall breakout star Milo Machado-Graner as a 14-year-old who is too ashamed to return home after a failed suicide attempt, and haunts the streets of his town until a girl from his school recognises him.
De Givry is fresh off Ugo Bienvenu’s Oscar-nominated animation Arco, which he co-produced and co-wrote. Producers are Iliade & Films and De Givry and Bienvenu’s Remembers, in co-production with Belgium UMedia. Playtime is selling.
In further special screenings, Julien Gaspar-Oliveri’s French drama Stonewall (La Frappe) is about a brother and sister facing trauma and resurfaced secrets when their father is released from prison. It stars Bastien Bouillon alongside rising actors Diego Murgia, Romane Fringelli and Heloise Volle.
Pierre Le Gall’s Flesh And Fuel (Du Fioul Dans Les Arteres) stars Alexis Manenti and Julian Swiezewski as two truck drivers who fall in love and try to maintain their relationship despite the distance. It is produced by Agat Films- Ex Nihilo.
The competition
Heading into the competition is Chinese filmmaker Zou Jing with her first feature A Girl Unknown, which won Critics’ Week Next Step top prize at project stage at the 2024 festival. Headlined by Resurrection actress Li Gengxi, it follows the tumultuous life of a young Chinese woman who lives with three different families and changes her name each time, as she navigates her identity over the years. Pyramide is selling. Cahen said there was an uptick in submissions from China, which she attributes to recent censorship clearance in the country.
Filmmakers from Kosovo and Yemen are represented in the competition for the first time this year. Kosovar director Blerta Basholli brings her second feature, coming-of-age drama Dua, about a 13-year-old girl whose daily life is shaken up by the conflict in Kosovo and Serbia.
Also screening is The Station, the first feature from UK-Yemeni filmmaker Sara Ishaq, set in an unnamed village torn apart by civil war. It explores sibling relationships and women’s resistance against an authoritarian regime that Cahen described as “Desperate Housewives in Yemen”. Paradise City Sales is handling sales.
French-Irish director Alexander Murphy’s documentary, Tin Castle, a portrait of a large family living along a road in a battered mobile home, is also screening in competition.
Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva is about a group of French high schoolers on a trip to Pompeii, where intense emotions and unexpected events unfold against the charged backdrop of the ancient city. Mk2 Films handles sales for the film produced by Les Films du Poisson and co-produced by Italy’s Bibi Films.
Spanish director Aina Clotet’s Alive (Viva) is set in drought-ridden Catalonia and follows a woman recovering from breast cancer reevaluating her personal and professional life.
Mexican director Bruno Santamaria Razo is also in competition with Six Months In A Pink And Blue Building, about a man revisiting his childhood memories as an 11-year-old in 1990s Mexico City, coming to terms with his father’s HIV diagnosis.
Cahen said the film “reminded us of the work of Charlotte Wells with Aftersun”, which first premiered in the sidebar in 2022.
Sourcing new talent
Cahen, now in her fifth year as artistic director, told Screen the selection is based on “active prospection” through visiting festivals and markets, including Marrakech’s Atlas Workshops and Torino Film Lab. She also receives an early look at projects thanks to her position on Arte’s selection committee.
Cahen and her team start viewing in December and begin issuing invitations to filmmakers once they’ve seen every submission, typically starting at the end of March or early April.
She said she is in “healthy and solid communication” with Thierry Fremaux and the official selection teams, as well as the other parallel programmes including Directors’ Fortnight.
“We often have the same appetites, but we all want the best for each film,” she said.
For example, seeing filmmakers whose first features debuted at Critics’ Week such as Emmanuel Marre and Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet heading to this year’s official competition “brought tears of joy to our eyes,” said Cahen.
She added: “Cannes can be the most beautiful place on earth for a film and its director, but it can also be the most cruel. First films are fragile and when filmmakers come to Critics’ Week with their first features, it is often also the first time they’ve even stepped foot in Cannes. We try to make them feel welcome and loved and make the Miramar a safe space.”
Critics’ Week 2026
*first film
Competition
The Station (Yemen-Jor-Fr-Ger-Neth-Nor-Qat)*
Dir. Sara Ishaq
Dua (Kosovo-Switz-Fr)
Dir. Blerta Basholli
La Gradiva (Fr-It)*
Dir. Marine Atlan
A Girl Unknown (Chi-Fr)*
Dir. Zou Jing
Six Months In A Pink And Blue Building (Mex-Den-Bra)*
Dir. Bruno Santamaría Razo
Tin Castle (Ire-Fra)
Dir. Alexander Murphy
Alive (Sp)*
Dir. Aina Clotet
Special screenings
In Waves (Fr-Bel) - Opening film*
Dir. Phuong Mai Nguyen
Stonewall (Fr)*
Dir. Julien Gaspar-Oliveri
Flesh And Fuel (Fr-Pol)*
Dir. Pierre Le Gall
Adieu monde cruel (Fr-Bel) - Closing film*
Dir. Félix de Givry
No comments yet