2026 L'ACID Selection

A few minutes ago General delegate Pauline Ginot announced the selection for ACID, Cannes parallel section run by France's Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (l'ACID); ACID is an association of film directors which, since 1992, has been promoting the cinema distribution of independent films and encouraging debates between authors and audiences. The strength of the solidarity chain it has built lies on its founding principle: the support given by filmmakers to other filmmakers, French or international.

The selection committee with 13 members screened more than 600 films and programmed 9 of them. Amongst them, 6 first and 3 second or more feature films, 5 fictions, 1 fiction/doc hybrid and 3 documentaries, and as every year, a particular attention given to films without distributors. In particular, this year there are 2 films with a strong Iranian identity, which undoubtedly reflects the times we are living.

As they say, “This year’s program reflects both the alarming madness of our time and our boundless capacity to cope. Questioning our institutions, understanding the feeling of exile, rethinking our relationship to the places we inhabit and the people around us; striving to please at all costs, dying to better reinvent ourselves, and allowing a camera to reveal the world as we have dreamed it: whether through humor, fiction, or attention to detail, filmmakers expose the dysfunctions that permeate our societies and their impact on each of us. The films presented are all gestures that bring us together, stories rooted in a poetic, joyful, unexpected, but above all, free and unformatted reality. They thus appear as powerful acts of resistance—and hope.”

The parallel section of #Cannes2026 will run from May 13 to 22.

The Selection

Opening Film: Mauvaise Étoile (Born Under A Bad Star), Lola Cambourieu and Yann Berlier, France 1st feature
Scorching heat in a suburban neighborhood in the South of France. It’s the end-of-year party at the local sports club. Birds are falling from their nests, wildfires are raging, and Kiki remains under the spell of her Bad Star.

Barça Zou (Rewind Barcelona), Paul Nouhet, France 1st feature
On their eighteenth summer, Emile, Paul, Hascoet and Leo head to Barcelona, the mecca of skateboarding, for their first vacation together. Ten years later, they catch up and recall those days.

Blaise, Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon, France (animation) 1st feature
The Sauvage family just wants to be loved. Carole is trying to improve her poor reputation among her employees, while Jacques is trying to do the same with his friends. As for their son Blaise, politely, he's about to embark on a revolutionary, violent, and completely impromptu crusade for a girl.

Cœur secret (A Secret Heart), Tom Fontenille, France (documentary) 1st feature
Over the last 4 years, Lilou left her secret life behind, becoming a 64-year-old woman who enjoys DIY, gardening, cycling and looking after her grandchildren. As I accompanied her through her transformation, I filmed a family healing its wounds and reinventing a place for everyone. This is my family, Lilou is my father.

Dans la gueule de l'ogre (In the Mouth of the Ogre), Mahsa Karampour, France (documentary) 1st feature
I can’t quite grasp the adventurous life of my brother Siavash, so far from my own. While I have just become French and he is about to become American, far from our native Iran, we are searching for common ground.

La Détention (Detention), Guillaume Massart, France (documentary)
Open a door. Handle a crisis. Write an incident report. At France’s prison officer academy, hundreds of men and women learn to become prison guards. Their words begin to mirror the institution. Their movements sharpen. What once felt uncertain becomes routine. Doubt slowly fades from their faces.

Living Twice, Dying Trhice, Karim Lakzadeh, Iran 
Three miners who survived the collapse of a mine decide to hide their deaths so that their families can claim compensation. Their clandestine life gradually leads to new crises: family tensions, a desire to start anew, and a search for identity that brings them all the way to Teheran. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities await proof of death…

Promised Spaces, Ivan Marković, France, Germany, Serbia and Cambodia 
Sleepless from the heat, Sokun leaves his crowded construction dormitory and joins a community of fellow workers living in one of many unfinished high-rises. One such tower offers a long-awaited luxury home for its first tenant, Seda, who soon feels trapped in the vast gated complex.

Virages (Summer Drift), Céline Carridroit et Aline Suter, Switzerland and France (hybrid) 1st feature
It’s summer in Geneva. Johanna works on the assembly line of a luxury watch factory and she’s not going on vacation. As she considers getting rid of her old VW Beetle, she decides instead to bring it back to life and confront the world of mechanics that once rejected her.