A poster for the 79th Cannes International Film Festival on the Croisette in the Mediterranean coastal city of Cannes, on May 4, 2026. JACQUES BENAROCH/SIPA
This year on the Croisette, in the Mediterranean coastal city of Cannes, not everyone will be focused on the same timeline. The 79th Cannes Film Festival is scheduled from Tuesday, May 12, to Saturday, May 23, with around 20 films in competition (by Pedro Almodóvar, James Gray, Arthur Harari, Marie Kreutzer, Emmanuel Marre and Léa Mysius, among others) and a jury chaired by South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. Yet some are already thinking ahead, to the 80th edition, in May 2027, which will likely take place after France's next presidential election.
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Cannes Film Festival 2026: Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar still burns with desire for cinema
The political context remains highly uncertain, with the rise of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party; growing overlap between the mainstream right and the far right; and persistently divided left-wing parties. Cannes's present, the country's future and the state of the world, as it becomes increasingly war-torn and battered, set to intertwine. The concept of time has grown hazy, reminiscent of The Persistence of Memory, a surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), with its melting clocks dangling by the sea. This artwork was created in 1931, at a time when Spain entered a period of turmoil, just before the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, and the rise of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1939.
