Cannes Film Festival Archives - Celluloid Junkie

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(From left) Daniel Berger, President at Oscilloscope Pictures; Sarah Mosses, Founder & CEO of Together Films; John Nein, Senior Programmer & Director of Strategy, Sundance Film Festival; Sharon 'Rocky' Roggio, Founder & Creative Director, 1946 Studios; and moderator Iddo Patt, CEO & Co-Founder of Eventive (Photo: Eventive)

Can Direct-to-Audience Distribution Give Indie Films a New Path to Theatres?

For decades, the independent film industry has operated according to a familiar hierarchy. A filmmaker completes a project, premieres at a major festival, secures a distributor, launches a theatrical run, and hopes that audiences discover the film through cinemas, home entertainment releases or – mo…

(From Left) Michael Barker and Tom Bernard, Co-Founder and Co-Presidents of Sony Pictures Classics, Dylan Leiner, EVP of Acquisitions, Production and Business Affairs at Sony Pictures Classics and Matt Brennan of the Los Angeles Times during the "How Sony Pictures Classics Navigates the World of Indie and International Cinema" panel on March 18, 2026 at the 2026 Marché du Film alongside the 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

The Long Game: How Sony Pictures Classics Still Wins at Cannes

There are easier ways to make a living than selling independent and international cinema in 2026. There are safer businesses than theatrical distribution, quieter ones than acquisitions, and certainly more predictable ones than building a release strategy around festival discovery, Oscar momentum, r…

2026 Cannes Film Festival - Palais des Festivals

Cannes 2026: Strong Films, Thin Buzz and a Market Finding New Footing

A strong competition without a consensus breakout, a Marché reshaped by private capital, and a Hollywood no-show that raised uncomfortable questions about the festival’s global reach. The 79th Cannes Film Festival closed on May 23 the way it opened — with defiance. No major Hollywood studio tentpole…

Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord” Wins Palme d’Or at 2026 Cannes Film Festival

Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord” Wins Palme d’Or at 2026 Cannes Film Festival

Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord” was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 79th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 23, giving the Romanian filmmaker his second win of the festival’s top prize, nearly two decades after “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” took the Palme in 2007. The Norway-set drama, starring Sebastia…

The Red Sea Film Foundation's 2026 Women In Cinema honorees, (from left) Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo, Kamila Andini, Aixa Kay, Genevieve Nnaji, and Tara Sutaria during its annual luncheon held alongside the 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival

At Cannes, Red Sea’s Women in Cinema Spotlight Makes the Case for a Wider Film Map

The Red Sea Film Foundation’s annual Women in Cinema spotlight brought together filmmakers and performers from Nigeria, Rwanda, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco — and made clear that some of the industry’s most urgent voices are still waiting for the infrastructure to match their ambition.…

2026 Cannes Film Festival

As Hollywood Pulls Back, Cannes Doubles Down

There is a quality to the light along the Croisette in May that no other film festival can replicate or claim. It falls at a particular angle across the Palais des Festivals — that concrete monolith critics have spent decades mocking and cinephiles have spent decades loving — and transforms even the…

Cannes Film Festival - Marche du Film 2025 - Defining and Designing European Film Success - Panel - Maja Cappello, Huub Roelvink, Peter Fornstam, Valeska Neu, Mati?ss Kaz?a, Agnieszka Moody, Gilles Fontaine

Cannes 2025: Defining the Success of European Films

The European Audiovisual Observatory’s traditional Saturday panel at Cannes’ Marché du Film, held this year on 17 May, returned to a timely and contentious question: what makes a European film successful—and how can we create more success stories? Moderated by Maja Cappello and Gilles Fontaine of th…

Headshots of the panelists from the Marché du Film Japanese cinema session (left to right): Eve Gabereau, Amel Lacombe, Nousha Saint-Martin, moderator Atsuko Ohno

Cannes 2025: Why Bet on Japanese Cinema

This year’s Cannes Film Festival proved to be a remarkable moment for Japanese cinema. Across the official selection, films from Japan dominated the festival’s various strands, including main competition effort “Renoir”, video game adaptation “Exit 8” which played in Midnight Screenings, and “A Pale…

Cannes Film Festival - 2025 Opening Ceremony - Group Photo

Cannes 2025 Opens with Political and Artistic Defiance

One day before the the 78th Cannes Film Festival commenced on 13 May 2025, its artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, insisted that the event only becomes “political when the artists are political.” Less than 24-hours later his statement was confirmed during an opening ceremony that transce…

Thierry Fre?maux - Cannes Film Festival 2025

Thierry Frémaux Is Keeping Cannes Focused on the Big Screen

Thierry Frémaux never strolls into a room. Rather, the Director of the Cannes Film Festival, seems to bound into the room, usually a packed auditorium at the Palais des Festivals, as if running behind schedule, delayed by whatever previously scheduled rendezvous he has just departed. Such was the ca…