Cannes’ Critics’ Week welcomes five European directors into its competition
- Marine Atlan, Blerta Basholli, Aina Clotet, Alexander Murphy and Sara Ishaq will battle it out for the Grand Prize
Five European filmmakers will take part in the competition section of the 65th Critics’ Week which is set to unspool between 13 and 21 May within the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Unveiled today in an online press conference (viewable on the Critics’ Week website) by artistic director Ava Cahen, the 2026 line-up includes 11 feature films (out of 1,050 candidates hailing from 106 countries), seven of which will screen in competition before being assessed by a jury whose composition will be revealed at a later date (along with the short films selection). Interestingly, six of the 11 feature films in the showcase are directed by women.
The seven films fighting it out for the Critics’ Week Grand Prize are composed of six fiction features and one documentary. Stand-out works include first films La Gradiva by French director Marine Atlan and Alive which stars and is directed by Spain’s Aina Clotet (co-creator of the series This Is Not Sweden and well-known as an actress in Elisa K, Los niños salvajes and La filla d’algú, among other works – read our news).
Two second feature films will also top the bill, in the form of Dua by Kosovo’s Blerta Basholli (who triumphed in the 2021 Sundance Festival with Hive) and the documentary Tin Castle by Ireland’s Alexander Murphy (acclaimed in Tallin last year via Goodbye Sisters).
Another three first fiction features will round off the competition: The Station by Scottish-Yemeni director Sara Ishaq (victorious in Final Cut in Venice last year), A Girl Unknown by China’s Zou Jing (who won the Next Step Prize in 2024 – news) and Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building by Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría Razo (read our interview), who cut his teeth as a director of photography for ten or so years.
The 2026 selection also boasts four first feature films from France, showcasing out of competition in Special Screenings, including the animated movie In Waves by French-Vietnamese director Phuong Mai Nguyen, which is set to open this year’s edition of Critics’ Week (a first for an animation in this festival section). We’ll also see the French-Polish production Flesh and Fuel by Pierre Le Gall (toplined by Alexis Manenti), The Blow by Julien Gaspar-Oliveri (starring Bastien Bouillon) and Goodbye Cruel World by Félix de Givry, which is set to close Critics’ Week.
Strikingly Eurocentric with a couple of Asian additions (China and Yemen) and a measure of Latin America (Mexico), the competition section of Critics’ Week 2026 will offer up a generational portrait through the story of a group of French high schoolers on a school trip to Italy (La Gradiva), a film blending drama and fable and focused on the camaraderie, emancipation and resistance of women faced with an authoritarian regime (The Station), the search for self of a young Chinese woman who’s torn between three families, which unfolds across three chapters covering childhood to adolescence (A Girl Unknown), an immersion in the day-to-day life of a large family from the Irish Traveller’s community (Tin Castle), a bittersweet comedic portrait of a woman (Alive), a novelistic family drama playing with home-movie codes and taking us back to the ‘90s through the memories of a little boy struggling with the mystery of his father’s illness (Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building) and a coming-of-age story set against a dramatic backdrop and revolving around a teenage girl who’s trying to find her way at the height of the Kosovo-Serbian conflict (Dua).
The full selection is as follows:
Feature Films
Competition
La Gradiva - Marine Atlan (France/Italy)
Dua - Blerta Basholli (Kosovo/Switzerland/France)
Alive – Aina Clotet (Spain)
The Station – Sara Ishaq (Yemen/Jordan/France/Germany/Netherlands/Norway/Qatar)
Tin Castle - Alexander Murphy (Ireland/France)
Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building - Bruno Santamaría Razo (Mexico/Denmark/Brazil)
A Girl Unknown - Zou Jing (China/France)
Special Screenings
In Waves - Phuong Mai Nguyen (France/Belgium, opening film)
The Blow - Julien Gaspar-Oliveri (France)
Flesh and Fuel - Pierre Le Gall (France/Poland)
Goodbye Cruel World - Félix de Givry (France/Belgium, closing film)
Short Films
Competition
Adgwa-Ata – Zsuzsanna Kreif (Hungary/France)
What Do the Maknines Dream Of (À Quoi rêvent les Maknines) – Sarra Ryma (Algeria/France)
City of Owls – Zhenia Kazankina (France/Germany/Italy)
Klasès Nuotrauka (Class Photo) – Arnas Balčiūnas (Lithuania)
Man‘mi – Aude N’Guessan Forget (France)
Nafron – Daood Alabdulaa (Syria/Germany)
Skinny Bottines (Skinny Boots) – Romain F. Dubois (Canada)
"Vaterland" or A Bule Named Yanto ("Vaterland" Oder ein Bule Namens Yanto) – Berthold Wahjudi (Germany/Indonesia)
Visite en terre irradiée – Anne-Sophie Girault (France)
What Do You Seek in the Dark? – Tossaphon Riantong (Thailand)
Special Screenings
I Think You Should Be Here – Elie Grappe & Anna-Marija Adomaityté (Switzerland/France)
La Sentinelle (The Sentinel) – Ali Cherri (France)
Love Story – Laïs Decaster (France)
(Translated from French)
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