Cannes 2026: Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Un Certain Regard Grand Prize
Sandra Wollner’s Everytime, the story grief and bonded tragedy of a mother, her daughter, and a teenage boy who take a trip to Tenerife for a holiday. In her speech, the Austrian director thanked her team of contributors, many fellow writers and directors themselves, saying “hold on to those quirky and weird thoughts” that creatives often tend to ignore in their initial senselessness, but that “hopefully stay with you a little longer.”
Other winners included Abinash Bikram Shah’s Elephants in the Fog, the story of a woman who is torn between fleeing with the man she loves and staying to fulfill her duty to search for a missing woman from her community and was also the first Nepali film in Cannes Un Certain Regard, and Louis Clichy’s hand-painted animated feature Iron Boy, which was acquired earlier in the week by Sony Pictures Classics for North and Latin America, India and Southeast Asian TV.
For the acting awards, the UCR jury awarded the female trio of Valentina Maurel’s Forever Your Maternal Animal — Daniela Marín Navarro, Oscar nominee Marina de Tavira (Roma) and Mariangel Villegas, Costa Rica’s first film in the section — and Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset’s breakout turn in Rafiki Fariala’s Congo Boy.
Popular American titles like Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, set for summer distribution from MUBI, and Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid, which was big pick up of the festival (A24 nabbed the debut for $17m) were left out.
This year’s Un Certain Regard jury was presided over by French actress Leila Bekhti, and joined by French director Thomas Cailley, whose Animal Kingdom opened UCR in 2023, Senegalese producer Angele Diabang, Italian director Laura Samani, and Lebanese composer Khaled Mouzanar.
Here is the winners list.
Prix Un Certain Regard: Everytime by Sandra Wollner
Jury Prize: Elephants in the Fog by Abinash Bikram Shah
Special Jury Prize: Iron Boy by Louis Clichy
Best Actress: Daniela Marín Navarro, Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas for Forever Your Maternal Animal
Best Actor: Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset for Congo Boy
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- Cannes 2026: Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Un Certain Regard Grand Prize - May 22, 2026
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