Decryption. Cannes Film Festival: this year, the whole world except the United States

The mystery is traditionally lifted a month before the start of the festival, which will take place this year from May 12 to 23rd. 150 journalists, including many international media, thus attended this Thursday at 11 am at the Pathé Palace in Paris for the unveiling, by Iris Knobloch, president of the festival, and Thierry Frémaux, general delegate, of the list of selected films, all sections combined. About sixty lucky ones, out of 2,541 feature films from 141 countries reviewed by the selection committee.

A few details had already been communicated about this 2026 crop. It was known that two honorary Palme d’Ors will be awarded to Barbra Streisand and New Zealand director Peter Jackson (of “The Lord of the Rings”), that the jury will be presided over by South Korean Park Chan-wook (a sign of the central place acquired by his country, Palme d’Or in 2019 with “Parasite,” in the cinema world), and that the romantic comedy by French Pierre Salvadori, “The Electric Venus,” with Anaïs Demoustier and Gilles Lellouche, will be shown on the opening night, May 12th – it will be released in theaters the following day.

21 feature films will compete in the main category, the “competition”: they are vying for the Palme d’Or. Half of them, 11, are “entrants” who have never had the honor of being in competition, like Spain’s Rodrigo Sorogoyen. He made a huge impression in 2022 with “As Bestas” and will present “El ser querido,” with Javier Bardem.

These 11 newcomers will share the red carpet with great regulars: Iranian Asghar Farhadi, who, unable to shoot in his own country, made his new film, “Parallel Stories,” in Paris, with Virginie Efira, Isabelle Huppert, and Catherine Deneuve; Japanese Kore-Eda; Russian director in exile Andrei Zviaguintsev; or Spanish Pedro Almodovar, in his seventh competition selection, with “Autofiction.” Although he was president of the jury, he surprisingly has never won the Palme d’Or. Could this be his year?

Five filmmakers will represent France, including Jeanne Herry, with “Garance,” or Arthur Harari, co-writer of the script for “Anatomy of a Fall,” for “The Unknown,” with Léa Seydoux and Niels Schneider. A film described by Thierry Frémaux as “extremely special,” “one of the most discussed in the selection committee.”

If France and Spain are well represented (with five and three films in competition, respectively), the notable absentees, unusual, are Italy (no feature film in the running for the Palme) and especially the United States. Only one American is in competition, Ira Sachs, for “The Man I Love.”

Thierry Frémaux explains this absence by the fact that, faced with “many changes, mergers, acquisitions,” the Hollywood industry produces fewer works that fit the Cannes typology, grandiose auteur films in the manner of Paul Thomas Anderson or Francis Ford Coppola.

The event will also feature numerous out-of-competition premieres. We will discover John Travolta’s directorial debut (“Night Flight to Los Angeles”), the new films of Quentin Dupieux (“Full Phil,” with Woody Harrelson and Kristen Stewart), Agnès Jaoui (“The Object of the Crime”), Guillaume Canet (“Karma,” with Marion Cotillard), as well as Charlotte Gainsbourg as Gisèle Halimi in “The Affair Marie-Claire,” Simon Abkarian as General de Gaulle (“The Battle of Gaulle: The Iron Age”).

Five female directors are among the 21 filmmakers in competition. Two of them have roots in the region. Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet, 40, who grew up in Royan, delighted us in 2021 with “The Loves of Anaïs”: she returns with “A Woman’s Life,” starring Léa Drucker.

Léa Mysius, 37, who spent her childhood in Bordeaux, will unveil the highly anticipated “Night Stories,” adapted from the novel by Laurent Mauvignier.