Swedish-Polish director Magnus von Horn, Finland’s Juho Kuosmanen, and France’s Carine Tardieu are among eight filmmakers selected to pitch feature projects in development to private investors at the Marche du Film’s investment platform Cannes Investors Circle.
The invitation-only financing event complete with a pitching session and one-on-one matchmaking meetings will be held on May 17 at the Marche du Film’s Plage des Palmes following a May 16 session of conference panels and talks by leading figures from the global industry.
No details of the projects have been released by the Cannes Investors Circle, only the filmmakers taking part.
Von Horn is best known for Cannes 2024 competition title The Girl With The Needle that went on to earn a best international feature Oscar nomination. Tardieu is fresh off a best French film of the year win at the 2026 Cesar awards for The Ties That Bind Us. Kuosmanen’s films have all earned prizes in Cannes including The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Maki that won the Un Certain Regard prize in 2016 and Compartment No. 6 that won the Grand Prix in Competition in 2021.
The other filmmakers taking part include France’s Noe Debre who was a co-writer on Palme d’Or-winning Dheepan and made his directorial debut with A Nice Jewish Boy in 2024. He is joined by Chilean filmmaker Felipe Galvez whose debut feature The Settlers premiered in Un Certain Regard and won the FIPRESCI prize and Japanese-American director Atsuko Hirayanagi whose debut feature Oh Lucy! premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week.
Also pitching projects are Romania’s Emanuel Pârvu whose last feature Three Kilometres To The End Of The World won the Queer Palm after a Cannes Competition premiere in 2024, and Moroccan-French director Ismael El Iraki whose Zanka Contact earned a best actress prize in Venice’s Orizzonti.
Last year, Marie Kreutzer’s Gentle Monster won the Cannes’ Investors Circle ArteKino International Prize worth €20,000 for producers Alexander Glehr and Johanna Scherz of Film AG Produktions.
The Marche du Film’s executive director Guillaume Esmiol said that last year’s edition sparked “concrete investment outcomes” citing Gentle Monster and Sebastian Lelio’s Poeta Chileno as examples.
He added that there are plans to expand the initiative beyond Cannes through year-round activities, such as a recent workshop in Trieste during When East Meets West.
The 2026 selection process was overseen by the Marche’s head of Investors Circle Alexandra Zakharchenko in collaboration with IPR.VC content executive Céline Dornier, Petit Film founder and CEO Jean des Forêts, VP of International sales at FilmNation Entertainment Alice Laffillé and Anthony Muir, senior executive for international co-productions at Film i Väst.
Organisers said the budgets for this year’s selected projects range from €1m to over €12m.
Zakharchenko said: “Particular attention has been given to projects that are ready to engage with private investment, combining clear market potential with strong creative positioning, including a growing presence of elevated genre-driven works.”
Gentle Monster, along with films from other Investors Circle 2025 participants like Lukas Dhont and Kornél Mundruczó are among the films rumoured to figure into this year’s official selection, that will be unveiled on Thursday (April 9) in Paris.
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