#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 15 - Garance.

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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76th Annual ACE Eddie Awards Winners

Update February 28. Last night the group had their awards ceremony and editors did not have to make a choice between the top two Oscars contenders as both got awards, Sinners in drama and One Battle After Another in comedy. Other award winners include The Perfect Neighbor in documentary and KPop Demon Hunters in animated feature.

Winners are below in *BLUE. To check winners in all categories go official site here but have to wait a while as list is not up at their site; meanwhile check this industry press article here.

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Yesterday, January 27, the American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced the nominations for the awards that recognize outstanding editing in eleven categories of film, television, documentaries and more.

Since 1951, American Cinema Editors has celebrated the best in television and feature film editing which makes them one of the longest-running awards shows in the entertainment industry.

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2026 BAFTA Award Winners

Update February 22nd. Last night the organization had their awards ceremony and there was one truly surprising award winner! This award winner beat Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Michael B. Jordan, Ethan Hawke and Jesse Plemons!

Yes, the best Leading Actor award went to a fairly unknown newcomer, so new that also won the voted by the public Rising Star Award, Robert Aramayo! He no longer is unknown and will always be remembered for winning a BAFTA but mainly for who he beat! Great.

Media coverage can't help themselves and lost many words to discuss the swearing of John Davidson that could be heard in the two hour delay broadcast; but, he was an invited guest as he is the real man with Tourette Syndrome that Robert Aramayo portraits in I Swear by Kirk Jones. No doubt show and broadcast audiences had to become more aware of the uncontrollable illness. Sigh.

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98th Academy Awards Winners

Update March 16. Last night the Academy had the awards ceremony and most of what I expected won awards, no major upset, no major surprises, no major speeches and my most unexpected moment was Barbra Streisand singing! It was an emotional moment for so many reasons among them, all the memories -my memories- and find out that she is aging.

One Battle After Another leads with 6 wins including top awards for movie and director, Sinners follows with 4 and not far away, Frankenstein with 3. But this year will be remembered for the many first time milestones.

- Paul Thomas Anderson received his first-ever Oscar for Adapted Screenplay - first time winning after 11 nominations dating from 1998. His second Oscar was for Directing and his third for Best Picture. He is now the 9th person to win Best Picture, Directing and Screenplay Oscars on same night.

- Jessie Buckley became the first Irish woman to win Best Actress.
- Autumn Dural Arkapaw first-ever female and first-ever black person cinematographer.
- Cassandra Kulukundis winning first-ever casting director award.
- First KPop song Oscar winner.
- First-ever International Feature Film Oscar for Norway.

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62nd Cinema Audio Society Awards Winners

Yesterday the society had their awards ceremony and F1, KPop Demon Hunters and Becoming Led-Zeppelin were the winners in feature film categories.

Winners are below in *BLUE. To check winners in all categories go official site here.

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January 21, 2026
Yesterday, January 20th, the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) announced its nominees in seven categories for the current year awards honoring Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing.

The CAS Award nominees highlight the outstanding contributions of sound mixers, recognizing excellence in the specialized craft of sound mixing for both motion pictures and television.

Each year, accomplished CAS members—who possess extensive expertise in the art and science of sound—review hundreds of submissions to ensure the nominees represent the highest standards of achievement in cinematic sound.

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76th Berlin International Film Festival Line-Up

This year the festival will run from February 12 to February 22 and the Program Press Conference is scheduled to be held on January 20, 2026 and will be available to watch from 10:45 CET on Berlinale live stream and live on YouTube.

Festival Director Tricia Tuttle gives an overview of the entire festival program. She will then present the films in the Competition and the Perspectives section together with the Co-Directors of Film Programming Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz.  Press Conference video is at post bottom.

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38th European Film Awards Winners

Last night at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin the awards ceremony took place and was visually arresting but still too-much talking in the wrong places and this time, talking wasn't by winners but presenters or voices in their own languages -okay, with subtitles that seems were not available inside the room as presenters kept making it obvious they didn't understood what the voice was saying. Sigh.

Another very confusing incident for me is that show was available on TV and there I was watching and no starting just the regular annoying award related pre-shows with non-interesting interviews ... so I fell asleep (LOL). When woke a few minutes later there was no show yet, so go check Internet and noticed that some awards were already known. To make story shorter, go to EFA stream and yes, the ceremony already started and were giviging the actors awards! Obviously, I stayed with the internet live stream until the end.

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24th Annual Visual Effects Society Award Winners

Update February 26 - Last night the society had their award ceremony and below are the winners in *BLUE.

Leading the group is Avatar: Fire and Ash with seven (7) awards followed by KPop Demon Hunters with 3 awards.

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Yesterday, January 13, the Visual Effects Society (VES) announced the nominations for the 2026 edition of the awards that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and in innovation in features, animation, television, commercials, games and new media, and the VFX supervisors, VFX producers and hands-on Artists who bring this work to life.

Nominees were selected by VES members worldwide over the weekend via the Society’s Global Nomination Event, which hosted 46 in-person and 14 virtual judging panels. The 60 peer-led judging panels in seven worldwide regions – Asia, Europe, India, Oceania, and three in North America – show the Society’s global reach and engagement.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is this year’s most-nominated project with ten nominations, including in the key category of Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. Among animated contenders, there is a three-way tie for top nominations with KPop Demon Hunters, Elio and Zootopia 2 each receiving five nominations.

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73rd Annual MPSE Golden Reel Award Winners

Update March 9. Last night the MPSE had their award ceremony and Sinners lead with 2 wins out of 3 nominations. Other winners include Frankenstein, Zootopia 2 and Sirât.

Oscars Sound category favorite until this award was F1; but, as the Academy merged editing and mixed into one category, now there is a race between Sinners that won Editing Dialogue and Frankenstein that won Effects/Foley. Still with Academy voting members anything could happen and F1, Sirât, plus One Battle After Another could still be in the race.

Winners are below in *BLUE. To check al winners go official site here and use link or go press article here.

January 13, 2026
Yesterday, January 12, the Motion Picture Sound Editors announced the nominations for the current year awards and One Battle After Another and Sinners lead with 3 nominations.

Let's recall that nominees represent the work of the world's most talented sound artists and their contribution to the past year's most outstanding feature film, television, animation, and computer entertainment productions.

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