Cannes 26

Ireland/UK’s Mike Downey and Istanbul-based Emir Kuelal Haznevi, both executive producers on Cannes competition 2026 entries Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi) and All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), have joined forces to form the new boutique film financing outfit Saudade Ink to develop, produce and invest in quality arthouse fiction and documentary cinema from across the world.

In The Match, Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco revisit one of the greatest, and most controversial, games of football ever played, the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and England. The match took place just a few years after the two countries went to war over the Malvinas (the Falklands) “We wanted to tell a balanced story about these two nations. It’s beyond football,” co-director Cabral tells BDE.

David and Liani Greaves, son and grand-daughter of pioneering filmmaker William Greaves, were in Cannes this week with their towering film in which, back in 1972, some of the most important still-surviving figures of the ‘Harlem Renaissance,’ the flowering of African-American authors, artists, musicians and intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s, attended a dinner party at Duke Ellington’s beautiful New York townhouse…and talked. David and Liana sat down with BDE for a little more talking, about the film (which world-premiered at Sundance) and the 50-year journey to complete it.

“I’m stating the obvious by saying that filmmakers and film festivals have a crucial role to play in preserving democracy, free speech, critical thinking, and in resisting reactionary ideologies,” a candid Pierre-Alexis Chevit, Head of Cannes Docs, tells BDE before doors open on the 2026 edition. The event kicks off May 14, and will culminate May 19 with Doc Day, which this year will include top-level contributions from the likes of Mstyslav Chernov, Mark Cousins, Ema Ryan Yamazaki and David Greaves, as well as the Docs-in-Progress Awards Ceremony.

The Spanish Docs-in-Progress showcase featured four documentary projects at different stages of development, highlighting the diversity of contemporary Spanish non-fiction filmmaking through stories rooted in identity, environmental collapse, social control and collective healing. Organised with the support of ICEX, ICAA and Zinebi, the presentation took place on May 17 as part of the Marché du Film’s industry programme.

There’s a lot going on in Céline Carridroit and Aline Suter’s hybrid Summer Drift (Virages) which, on a basic level, charts protagonist Johanna Schopfer’s summer in Geneva as she works, enjoys the summer sunshine and considers getting rid of her old VW Beetle. The doc, which premiered in Cannes ACID, also provides a nuanced appraisal of LGBTQ+ and trans themes within a visually alluring 16mm aesthetic, all of which help to deliver a gentle charmer of a film.

In Gabin, director Maxence Voiseux follows his eponymous character, a precocious and sensitive boy from a rural background in northern France, over an entire decade of his life, from 8 to 18. On the one hand, the boy is fiercely proud of his roots and very loyal to his family’s way of life. On the other, he wants to “do something different” and this quickly puts him in conflict with his father. “For me, he [Gabin] is a strong cinema character because has to deal with these two sides of his life,” Voiseux tells BDE.

Belgrade-based Neda Lukić, recently of Taskovski Films, announced May 18 the launch of Films Mundi, a new boutique world sales and distribution company focused on carefully curated creative documentaries. “I wanted to create a space for projects that resonate with me personally — where, beyond experience and strategy, I can also invest genuine care and heart,” Lukić told Business Doc Europe.

Cherished Hollywood star, dedicated runner and raconteur extraordinaire, Bruce Dern is, as director Mike Mendez notes, also a law unto himself. What’s more he is, in an American sense, somewhat posh. “It’s not in the movie but Eleanor Roosevelt babysat him!” Mendez tells BDE. “It continues throughout his life. He is always next to greatness. Whether it is Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock or Quentin Tarantino, his entire life, he always rides along greatness…I kind of look at him like a real-life Forrest Gump.”

Christophe Dimitri Réveille’s partly-animated new feature doc tells the remarkable story of three of Che Guevara’s trusted followers who made a remarkable 2600-mile trek to safety after Che’s execution in Bolivia. Réveille, 48, has an intriguing background for a documentary maker. He’s an actor and acting coach. “What’s the connection between an acting coach in New York and the survivors of Che Guevara?” he muses to BDE. “It’s that they were hiding in the shadows of well-known people.”