11/05/2026 - The French sales agent has the wind at its back, with five contenders for the Palme d’or, a feature film in the Un Certain Regard section, another in a Special Screening and a third in Critics’ Week

Minotaur by Andrey Zvyagintsev

Just a stone’s throw from breaking the record it set last year of six contenders battling it out for the Palme d’or, mk2 Films’ international sales division is set to disembark at the 79th Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film with yet another dazzling line-up.

No fewer than five feature films belonging to the team steered by Fionnuala Jamison are in the running for the Palme d’Or, spearheaded by Minotaur, directed by Russian exile Andrey Zvyagintsev who won the Best Screenplay Prize in Cannes back in 2014 for Leviathan and the Jury Prize in 2017 for Loveless (his most recent film to date). His new opus was produced by France, Latvia and Germany.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

mk2 will also support two women directors taking their first steps in competition on the Croisette: Austria’s Marie Kreutzer (who competed in Berlin in 2019 with The Ground Beneath My Feet as well as in the 2022 Un Certain Regard showcase with Corsage) by way of Gentle Monster and French filmmaker Léa Mysius (screened in Critics’ Week 2017 via Ava and in the 2022 Directors’ Fortnight thanks to The Five Devils) with The Birthday Party.

The other two competitors gracing mk2’s line-up are The Man I Love by US director Ira Sachs (his second chance at nabbing the Palme d’Or after Frankie in 2019) and Nagi Notes by Japan’s Kôji Fukada (triumphant in the 2016 Un Certain Regard section via Harmonium, selected for last year’s Cannes Première showcase via Love on Trial, and in competition in Venice 2022 with Love Life) which was minority co-produced by French firm Survivance.

Shining bright in the Official Selection’s Un Certain Regard line-up is Ben’Imana by Rwanda’s Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo (a first feature film produced by Rwanda and Gabon, in co-production with French outfit Les Films du Bilboquet and Norway’s Duo Film), Madame by France’s Hélène Rosselet-Ruiz, which is showing in a Special Screening, and three titles in the Cannes Classics section: feature films Travail au noir by Poland’s Jerzy Skolimowski (who’ll be making the journey to Cannes) and La légende du grand judo by Japan’s Akira Kurosawa, and the short (32-minute) film Torino Shadow by China’s Zia Zhang-ke.

Last but not least, mk2 will be selling La Gradiva by French director Marine Atlan which has also been selected to compete in Critics’ Week.

Other works highly deserving of a mention in the line-up are Julien Ccheng’s animated movie Mu Yi, which will world premiere in the upcoming Annecy Film Festival’s Contrechamp competition, and, currently in production, Justine Triet’s Fonda (article) and Todd Haynes’ De noche (starring Pedro Pascal and Danny Ramirez in lead roles).

(Translated from French)