58th Directors’ Fortnight Lineup of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival
The lineup of the 58th edition of Directors’ Fortnight, a main section of the Cannes Film Festival, has been announced, full of top tier Cannes directors, exciting newcomers, buzzy stars and more.
The 19 feature films and nine short films represent 19 countries on five continents, with notable contributions from a number of countries with little or no international exposure, such as Nigeria, Sudan, Guatemala, Venezuela and Cyprus. The lineup includes five documentaries (three features and two shorts) and five animated films (three features and two shorts as well) and among them all are six debut features.
Directors Fortnight will also premiere of the latest film from Alain Cavalier, who was among the pioneering discoverers of new films and talents at the start of the Fortnight.
The edition will open with Butterly Fly, the English-language debut from Kantemir Balagov, the Russian director behind the acclaimed 2019 drama Beanpole. The film, set in a tight-knit U.S. community of Circassian immigrants, stars Barry Keoghan, Riley Keough, Harry Melling and Monica Bellucci.
Romanian auteur Radu Jude returns following up to last year’s Dracula with an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s The Diary of a Chambermaid. The film stars Ana Dumitrascu, Vincent Macaigne and Mélanie Thierry.
The lone film from the U.S., Reed Van Dyk’s debut feature Atonement, stars Kenneth Branagh, Hiam Abbass, and Boyd Holbrook, is set during the early days of the Iraq War and inspired by real events. The film follows a U.S. marine’s attempts to reconcile with the survivor of a firefight that devastated an Iraqi family.
One of the most consistent South Korean presences at Cannes in recent years, writer-director July Jung returns to the Croisette with Dora. The film, starring Sakura Ando and Kim Doyeon, centers on a young woman whose physical and emotional illness begins to lift when she falls in love. Jung’s debut A Girl at My Door was screened in Un Certain Regard in 2014, while Next Sohee closed Critics’ Week in 2022. Many expected Jung to reach In Competition status this year.
Announcing the Directors’ Fortnight lineup, artistic director Julien Rejl said of Dora: “It’s a very free and contemporary adaptation of Dora’s case study by Freud in 1900. It’s a very famous case but transposed here to contemporary Korea.”
“It’s set over a summer during which the young Dora with her family and friends come to get rest but she’s about to become a trigger of all the passions of this microcosm. This issue of desire and the desire for a young woman is at the core of the film. It’s depicted in a way that you rarely get to see in Korean films.”
Of three animated features in the lineup of features, La Vertige closes this year’s Directors’ Fortnight, while also marking the second film debuting on the Croisette from Quentin Dupieux, whose absurdist comedy Full Phil — starring Woody Harrelson and Kristen Stewart — is in the Midnight Screening section. The film was shot entirely in 3D using motion-capture.
As previously announced, Claire Denis will receive the Carrosse d’Or Award on May 13, 2026, in Cannes, during the Directors’ Fortnight
opening ceremony.
Here is the complete lineup.
FEATURE FILMS
BUTTERFLY JAM by Kantemir Balagov – opening film
9 TEMPLES TO HEAVEN by Sompot Chidgasornpongse – first feature film
ATONEMENT (The Apprehension) by Reed Van Dyk – first feature film
CARMEN, THE REBEL BIRD (Viva Carmen) by Sébastien Laudenbach – animation
CLARISA by Arie Esiri & Chuko Esiri
DEATH HAS NO MASTER (La muerte no tiene dueño) by Jorge Thielen Armand
DORA by July Jung
DOUBLE FREEDOM (La libertad doble) by Lisandro Alonso
THE EXPLOSIVE SPECIES (Too Many Beasts) by Sarah Arnold – first feature film
GABIN by Maxence Voiseux – documentary – first feature film
I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING by Clio Barnard
THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID by Radu Jude
LOW EXPECTATIONS (Lave Forventninger) by Eivind Landsvik – first feature film
THANK YOU FOR COMING by Alain Cavalier – documentary
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM by William Greaves & David Greaves – documentary
LA PERRA by Dominga Sotomayor
SHANA by Lila Pinell
WE ARE ALIENS by Kohei Kadowaki – animation – first feature film
THE VERTIGO (Vertiginous) by Quentin Dupieux – animation – closing film
SHORT & MEDIUM LENGTH FILMS
IN SEARCH OF THE GREY BIRD WITH GREEN STRIPES by Saïd Hamich Benlarbi – documentary
DAUGHTERS OF THE LATE COLONEL by Elizabeth Hobbs – animation
ERI by Yano Honami – animation
FREE ELIZA (NOTES ON AN ANATOMICAL IMPERFECTION) by Alexandra Matheou
THE JOYLESS ECONOMY by Marjorie Conrad – documentary
MADRUGADA by Sebastián Lojo
NOTHING HAPPENS AFTER YOUR ABSENCE (لا شيءَ يحدثُ بعدَ غيابِكَ) by Ibrahim Omar
OH BOYS by Antonio Donato
PITHEAD by Wannes Vanspauwen & Pol De Plecker
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