Cannes Critics’ Week to Open With Animated Memoir, Adds Yemen and Kosovo — No U.S. Films in 2026 Lineup

The first image Cannes Critics’ Week will project in 2026 is not of a war-torn village or a cramped apartment, but an ocean swell: the hand-drawn surf of In Waves, an animated love story adapted from AJ Dungo’s graphic memoir.

That choice alone would mark a shift for the festival sidebar devoted to discovering new filmmakers. But when Critics’ Week unveiled its 65th‑edition lineup on Monday, the program signaled a broader recalibration: the section will open for the first time with an animated feature, bring Yemen and Kosovo into feature competition for the first time — and include no U.S. films at all.

La Semaine de la Critique, founded in 1962 and run by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, is Cannes’ oldest parallel section and has a track record as an early showcase for directors such as Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Julia Ducournau. Its selection of first and second features often foreshadows what will drive specialty distribution, the festival circuit and awards conversations over the next year.

This year’s edition, running alongside the main Cannes Film Festival in May, gathers 11 features and 13 shorts. Seven features will compete for Critics’ Week prizes and the Caméra d’Or, the Cannes award for best first feature, while four screen out of competition. Artistic director Ava Cahen framed the 2026 program as a deliberate renewal. “A breath of fresh air sweeps across the poster of the 65th Semaine de la Critique,” she said during the lineup presentation.

An animated memoir opens the door

That “fresh air” arrives most visibly with In Waves, a roughly 90‑minute French‑Belgian animated film by Vietnamese French director Phuong Mai Nguyen. The feature, produced by Silex Films, adapts Dungo’s acclaimed graphic memoir about a young man’s relationship with a surfer girlfriend in California, intertwining first love, grief and surf and skate culture along the Pacific.

It is the first time Critics’ Week has entrusted its opening slot to animation, a space more commonly occupied by live‑action debuts. The move aligns the section with a broader shift that has seen auteur‑driven animated films, from Japan to Europe, move from late‑night sidebars into prime competition and awards positions at major festivals.

Closing the section is another debut, Adieu monde cruel by French filmmaker Félix de Givry. The drama follows a 14‑year‑old boy in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt and features Milo Machado‑Graner, who broke out in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall. Between those bookends, Critics’ Week will also showcase Julien Gaspar‑Oliveri’s Stonewall / La Frappe and Pierre Le Gall’s Flesh and Fuel / Du Fioul dans les artères as out‑of‑competition titles.

New countries, intimate crises

The competition slate of seven features leans toward small‑scale, socially rooted stories — and extends Critics’ Week’s map.

From Yemen comes The Station (Al Mahatta), directed by UK‑Yemeni filmmaker Sara Ishaq. Set at a petrol station run by a woman during wartime, the film depicts the business as a fragile haven amid conflict. It is the first Yemeni feature selected in Critics’ Week competition; world sales are being handled by Paris‑based company Paradise City, which plans to introduce the film to buyers at the Marché du Film, Cannes’ industry market.

Kosovo also enters Critics’ Week competition for the first time with Dua, the second feature by Blerta Basholli. Set in late‑1990s Pristina, the coming‑of‑age drama follows a 13‑year‑old navigating adolescence in a city emerging from conflict. Basholli’s previous film, Hive, about a woman starting a small business in postwar Kosovo, won multiple awards at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021, making Dua closely watched among art‑house distributors.

China’s A Girl Unknown (Wu ming nü hai) brings back director Zou Jing, whose short Lili Alone screened at Critics’ Week and who previously took part in the section’s Next Step development program. Her feature debut explores a young woman’s struggle on the margins of rapidly changing Chinese society.

French cinematographer‑turned‑director Marine Atlan presents La Gradiva, an unusually long, two‑hour‑plus school‑trip drama set around Pompeii, in which emotional tensions among students build over the course of the journey. The Mexican film Six Months in the Pink Building (Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul), by Bruno Santamaría Razo, focuses on childhood memories and a family responding to a father’s HIV diagnosis.

Rounding out competition are Tin Castle, an Ireland‑France documentary by Alexander Murphy that portrays a large family living in a roadside caravan, and Viva (Alive), a feature by Spanish actor and filmmaker Aina Clotet.

Taken together, the seven films reflect what Cahen described as a cohort of directors facing contemporary turmoil without surrendering to despair. She said the selection “bears witness to a society imploding but which refuses to give in.” Many of the stories turn on adolescence, fragile refuges and families under strain, whether in Yemen, Mexico or provincial Europe.

A conspicuous gap: no U.S. titles

One detail that stood out to industry observers is what the lineup does not contain: any American feature. While U.S. independent cinema has often found a foothold in Cannes sidebars, trade publications noted that Critics’ Week’s 2026 selection leans instead on Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

The absence comes in a year when the Official Selection has also been described as lighter on U.S. titles than usual. The festival has not publicly explained the composition beyond its usual emphasis on artistic criteria and first or second features, and Critics’ Week has stressed that its mandate is global rather than tied to specific production hubs.

Market stakes and a bellwether role

Behind the programming choices lie concrete industry stakes. All five first features and two second features in competition are eligible for the Caméra d’Or, which can significantly boost a film’s international profile. Critics’ Week alumni often parlay their Cannes exposure into further festival invitations and distribution deals in Europe, North America and Asia.

Sales companies have already begun positioning several titles. In addition to Paradise City on The Station, French outfit Charades is handling international rights on Stonewall / La Frappe, one of the out‑of‑competition titles. Those firms will shop the films to buyers at the Marché du Film, as distributors look to fill their 2026 and 2027 slates with prestige and awards‑friendly fare.

The short‑film lineup and Critics’ Week jury are expected to be announced in the coming days. For now, the 65th edition’s combination of an animated opening, new national entrants and a reshuffled geographic balance underscores how Cannes’ discovery arm is quietly redrawing the contours of what “emerging cinema” looks like — and where the next wave of festival breakouts may come from.