Huge Changes to Oscars International Feature Film Category

Yesterday the Academy made big waves by changing rules for several Oscars categories but none are as significant as the changes in the International Feature Film category that will open to not only films submitted by countries or regions, but also to non-English films winners of top awards in the three major film festivals plus 2 more festivals. In other words, a single country or region could now land multiple nominations for Best International Feature Oscar.

Hope I'm mistaken but now surely will be controversy on how many film festivals are included in the qualifying list and my personal doubt is why Toronto and Sundance are in the list and not San Sebastian, Sarajevo, Karlovy Vary or Locarno? Well, let's hope they open the door only and in the future there will be more film festivals listed. Sigh!

Undoubtedly change generated out of the controversy or frustration when 2023 Palme d'Or winner Anatomy of a Fall was not eligible for the category as France sent a different film, plus the fact that each year there are more films that will/could not be sent by the country where it was filmed due to geo-political conflicts and are major film award winners like for example, The Seed of the Sacred Fig and It Was Just an Accident that were filmed in Iran but both film directors are Iranian dissidents.

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16th Queer Palm Selection

Update May 8. There are only five films in the Short Film selection, so organizers decided that the winners of the Queer Palm Lab 2025/2026 will be the jury for short films competition. Post has become final as all films info is available at festival official site.

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Update May 6. Cannes Classics brings one more film to the Queer Palm Competition for a total of 22 feature films. The film is L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age) by Bérenger Thouin.

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April 30
A few minutes ago organizers started to publish the Queer Palm Selection from films in all sections of Cannes 2026. They started with feature films and imagine will later follow with short films and perhaps documentaries.

So, I'm starting this post that will be In Progress until films are at official festival site.

The 2026 edition of the Cannes LGBT+ award is the 16th and there is no doubt that what once was a sidelined award has become integral part of the festival. It wasn't easy for award organizers to get to where they are now, but perseverance and tolerance has made this award to not only survive but thrive. Congrats!

The Poster

Kwir Nou Éxist explores the emergence of Réunion’s young queer community, its bond to the island’s territory and to the lives that came before it. Developed over five years by Raya Martigny and Édouard Richard, the project weaves together photography, archives and video.

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58th Quinzaine des Cinéastes Selection

Update April 24th. As expected a new addition to Quizaine Selection, a Special Screening, Les Roches Rouges (Red Rocks) by Bruno Dumont followed by a masterclass with the filmmaker.

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Today, Tuesday, April 14, Julien Relj, Artistic Director, announced the selection for the 2026 edition and yes, some films expected in #Cannes2026 Official Selection ended up here like films by Kantemir Balagov, Lisandro Alonso, Clio Barnard, Radu Jude, and Dominga Sotomayor. Most surprising fact is Quentin Dupieux having to movies in Cannes, one in the selection and one closing la Quinzaine!

Before going into the list lets star with a brief reminder of what this Cannes parallel section is all about.

La Quinzaine

Created in 1969 by the Société des Réalisatrices et Réalisateurs de Films (SRF), the Directors’ Fortnight is an independent sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival, which is dedicated to showcasing the most singular forms of contemporary cinema. The name of the section was changed in 2023 from Quinzaine des Réalisateurs to Quinzaine des Cinéastes, the international version in English did not change.

As opposed to the official selection, the Fortnight is non-competitive; it brings together short, medium- and feature-length films, fiction and non-fiction, live action and animation. Only one principle guides our selection: a filmmaker’s attendance to mise en scene, and their unique mode of artistic expression.

The Fortnight values freedom of thought and the invention of new forms of dialogue, of narrative, of representation, and of editing. We are also very attentive to propositions that reinvent cinematic genres which, traditionally, have been more popular.

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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.”

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65th Semaine de la Critique Lineup

Update April 15, 2026. Short Films Selection was announced and are listed below. Post has become final.

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April 13, 2026
A few minutes ago Ava Cahen, Artistic Director, announced the feature film selection for the 2026 edition of the Critics' Week. Take note that the short film selection will be announced on April 15 and is when this post in progress will become final.

Most important is to remember that La Semaine de la Critique - the parallel selection of the Cannes film festival dedicated to first and second films - will be held in Cannes from May 13th to 21st 2026.

For the past 65 years, La Semaine de la Critique has been supporting the first steps of short- and feature-film directors from across the world with unwavering passion; paying close attention as artists venture off the beaten path to reinvent storytelling and experiment with new cinematic language.

Each new generation contributes to the history of cinema. It is captivating to see it unfold – an endless source of joy for La Semaine de la Critique to be carried away by these filmmakers’ imagination.

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79th Cannes Film Festival Lineup

Update May 8. Yesterday the Cinéma de la Plage program was announced via press release and with 11 films.

With this update the post becomes final as info about all films is available at official site. That's it, unless festival releases extraordinary news. There are only four days to festival's opening day and let the major annual cinephiles feast begin!

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Update May 6. Yesterday the Cannes Classics program was released with 2 new films, some short films including one by Jia Zhang-ke, and some documentaries plus some restored films. The list is at bottom of this post.

Worth highlighting is that restored El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) by Guillermo del Toro will be presented as a pre-opening screening of the festival on May 12 at 2:30 in the Debussy Theater in the presence of Guillermo del Toro and in a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the film's World Premiere.

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La Fabrique Cinéma 2026 Selection

La Fabrique Cinéma is a program created by the Institut français, in partnership with France Médias Monde and the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, to promote the emergence of young filmmakers from developing and emerging countries on the international market.

Conceived in close collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival and its Marché du Film, La Fabrique Cinéma de l'Institut français selects each year ten 1st or 2nd feature film projects to present and introduce them in a privileged way to the industry and its decision-makers during the Cannes Film Festival.

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#Cannes2026 Wish List - Maybe French

Update: After noticing that most films I was choosing for this post are not by French directors, but are in the French-Language and/or have a relevant French cast decided to include all films that called my attention no matter if they can be called or not French.

So there could be films from France, Europe, Asia and any other world region with a film in the generic wish list, spoken in French totally, partially or not, with a French cast or not, filmed totally or partially in France or not, and is majority or minority French produced.

Nevertheless kept the original introduction that includes interesting info about the fest and French productions.

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There is no surprise that generic Wish List in The French section has the most films as many of you know I'm crazy about French "good" cinema and by good I mostly mean what some call cinéma d'auteur or non-commercial cinema. So choosing films to go in-depth is no easy task; still, there are some that even in such long list pop-out and shine, those will be mentioned here.

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#Cannes2026 Wish List - The Nordics

As promised to some blog regular readers, will do a more in-depth exploration of directors and their films I find interesting and hope will fulfill its promise when finally we are able to watch them. This time will go into regions and will start with a region that is producing the most fascinating, engaging and visually astounding long-form films, otherwise called TV series (lol), the Nordics.

In the generic #Cannes2026 Wish List there are 8 films that possibly will be ready for 2026 screening as in paper have high potential to be accepted in any world film festival and a few have impeccable credentials like Romanian Cristian Mungiu, Icelandic Hlynur Pálmason (not ready for Cannes), and Danish Nicolas Winding Refn. But lets also consider two young newcomers like Swedish-Costa Rican Nathalie Alvarez Mesén (her film Clara Sola was in #Cannes2021 Quinzaine) and Swedish Amanda Kernell (her film Sami Blood was in #BiennaleCinema2016 Giornate degli Autori).

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#Cannes2026 Wish List

What's New, March 25- El Deshielo by Manuela Martinelli.

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As the date of the lineup announcement press conference is known, April 9 at 11:00am Paris time, the Cannes guessing game is open for a bit more than one month and the Wish List is made out of cinema industry's buzz and fuzz.

This year will do a list with movies by continents and in each continent in complete mixture.  The mix will contain Cannes major contenders, potential contenders and those more likely will go to Venice or elsewhere.

But as some of you recall, truly this is a list of films that will become available to watch during 2026 and 2027 and as always, there are many films that in paper look fantastic with very well-known directors and a showcase of many of my favorite directors like Reygadas, Almodovar, Farhadi, Bagalov, Moretti, Palmason, Hamaguchi among a few more.

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51th César Award Winners

Last night the Academy had their awards ceremony and Nouvelle Vague leads with 4 awards followed by L'Attachement with 3 and with 2 awards each L'inconnu de la grande arche, Nino, Arcon and Le Chant des forêts.

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76th Berlin International Film Festival Award Winners

Last night was the awards ceremony which was full with very awkward moments by the ceremony host that wasn't prepared to what all of us knew will come with winners acceptance speeches. Yes there were mentions of what's happening in Palestine -which was the topic above cinema during the totality of the festival-, but there were also some mentions about Ukraine and what's happening in the USA.

I do believe that what differentiates Berlinale from Cannes and Venice is that Berlinale has always been a platform to spoke about world politics, sometimes with controversial movies and other times with the voices of filmmakers and their personal political view. It is the essence of this festival and it is imprint in its DNA. If organizers change it, the festival will change and most likely become one more of the many second-tier film festivals in the world. Sigh.

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40th Teddy Awards Winners

Update February 21. Last night organizers had their award ceremony and undoubtedly the best part was Céline Sciamma's acceptance speech as no matter all the political turmoil the festival had this year, she had the courage to speak her mind up and touch every political aspect the Berlinale has been always about as it is (or was?) part of its essence and differentiate point from other festivals. Brava!!!

Winners are below marked *BLUE. Decided to include the films that got a mention as nominated films, meaning there where 3 films in each category and jury selected one of them. Other awards give a money prize to nominated films but this one did not. Nominations are in *GREEN.

To check winners at official site go here.

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February 17, 2026

As festival is about to start and no changes have been made in the last days, today February 10, decided to make this post final.

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30th Art Directors Guild Award Winners

Update March 1st, 2026. Last night the guild had their awards ceremony with Frankenstein and One Battle After Another taking top prizes and yes, making them top contenders for #Oscars2026 Best Production Design.

Winners are below marked *BLUE. To check winners in all categories at official site go here, is a pdf file.

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2026 Writers Guild Award Winners

Update March 9. Yesterday the guild had their awards ceremony only in New York City as the West Coast ceremony was canceled amid an ongoing strike by unionized staffers against WGA West's management and ahead of contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on March 16.

Sinners, One Battle After Another and 2000 Meters to Andriviika with awards in the feature film categories. To check winners in all categories go official site here. Winners are below in *BLUE.

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January 28, 2026
Yesterday, January 27, the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) announced the nominations for outstanding achievement in writing during 2025 for film, television, streaming, news (broadcast and digital), radio/audio, and promotional categories.

As always have to recall guild rules require writers to be a guild member or under a WGA collective bargaining agreement as otherwise script becomes ineligible; that's the reason why this year screenplays for Oscar contenders Sentimental Value, Blue Moon and It Was Just an Accident were left out and the open spots were filled by Black Bag and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.

Quite different story for the adapted category as WGA's nominees exactly mirrors #Oscars2026 nominations and is almost equal to the USC's Scripter nominees as Bugonia is nor in Scripter list and Ira Sachs' Peter Hujar's Day fills the spot.

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