This year’s Cannes Film Festival was overstuffed with masters of European and Asian cinema — Hamaguchi, Farhadi, Almodóvar, Kore-eda, Mungiu, Pawlikowski, Zvyagintsev and so on. Some of their anticipated new works landed better than others; a select few are now making the fall-festival rounds in hopes of gaining some Oscar momentum. But on the Croisette back in May, one teen-centered drama programmed outside of the Main Competition emerged as the clear critical favorite that no one saw coming: La Gradiva, Marine Atlan’s debut feature, which went on to win the Grand Prize in the Critics’ Week sidebar. (The Hollywood Reporter‘s review called it a “stunning feature debut,” and it remains at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.)
Acquired out of Cannes for a December release stateside by 1-2 Special, La Gradiva is a finalist in the competition to become France’s Oscar submission and will make its North American premiere at the 2026 Toronto Film Festival on Monday. The film follows a French class on a school trip to Pompeii and features almost all newcomers in the ensemble. With Atlan, a highly regarded cinematographer, splitting D.P. duties with Pierre Mazoyer, the movie introduces itself with a stark realist aesthetic, immersing viewers in the day-to-day of dozens of students harboring confusing crushes, anxiously awaiting news about their futures, arguing about the dire state of modern capitalism. La Gradiva’s seamless verisimilitude is a testament both to Atlan’s authority behind the camera and to the extensive research that went into the script — a portrait of adolescence ringing at once bracingly of the moment and achingly timeless.
