The Cannes Film Festival enters another chapter under the leadership of Iris Knobloch, who has just begun her second three-year term and is now in her fourth year as president. As the first woman to occupy this post, Knobloch brings a background that spans executive roles in major studios and collaborations with directors such as Michel Hazanavicius, Christopher Nolan and Clint Eastwood. In a recent conversation with Vanity Fair, she maps out the contours of the 2026 event, explains how the selection reflects global cinema, and emphasizes the festival’s mission to champion creative voices.
This season opens with renewed ambition: the institution aims to be a meeting ground for established auteurs and emerging filmmakers from across continents. Knobloch describes the festival as a platform that amplifies films already completed, meaning Cannes acts after production but profoundly influences a film’s trajectory. She positions the festival as both a showcase and a cultural arbiter — a place where visibility can translate into broader circulation and awards momentum.
Selection snapshot: geography, numbers and diversity
The 2026 lineup emphasizes Europe, and notably French cinema: there are five French directors in competition and a total of 28 films produced in France across the selection. Yet the program remains international: the United States contributes eleven feature films, nearly matching last year’s twelve, while Asia is represented by six titles primarily from Japan and South Korea. Spain offers four entries, and the lineup also includes productions from Congo, Rwanda and Haiti, reflecting a growing plurality. Knobloch calls the festival a crossroads where national industries at different stages of development meet, and she highlights cannes’s capacity to give disparate cinemas a shared stage and audience.
History on screen: why filmmakers look back
This edition shows a pronounced interest in historical narratives, with several films engaging with wartime subjects from World War II to the Spanish Civil War. Knobloch points out that festival trends often reflect filmmakers’ long-range intuition: works appearing now were frequently conceived three to four years earlier, suggesting creators sensed cultural fault lines before they became headline issues. The 2026 program had foregrounded the condition of women, and 2026 emphasized themes of dictatorship — including Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent and Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident. Turning to history, she argues, can be a method of public learning and cinematic interrogation.
Filmmaker journeys and festival memories
Knobloch treasures moments when new auteurs ascend the red carpet. She recalls Ramata-Toulaye Sy arriving at Cannes for her debut feature, Banel & Adama, visibly moved by the scale of the audience. Payal Kapadia’s trajectory is another emblematic story: nurtured through the festival’s Résidence, she developed her first fiction and later won the Grand Prix with All We Imagine As Light. These stories underline Cannes’s role as a career accelerator. Knobloch also remembers landmark Palme d’Or evenings, such as Justine Triet’s victory and the rare occasion when Sean Baker’s Anora reportedly won both Palme d’Or and the Oscar for Best Picture — moments she describes as life-changing for filmmakers.
Equality, technology and the festival’s influence
On parity, the festival has recorded measurable progress: women direct 34 percent of features this year, up from 26 percent the previous year, while the Un Certain Regard section reaches 58 percent female directors. Early-career and school-film categories similarly show higher female representation. Knobloch acknowledges that visibility is only the first step; the next frontier is equitable access to financing, production leadership and decision-making positions. Cannes’s remit, she says, is to elevate finished work — visibility that can unlock funding and career opportunities later in the process.
Artificial intelligence, rules and awards
The festival also confronts technological shifts. In response to the Academy’s decision to bar films using generative artificial intelligence in acting and screenplay categories, Knobloch stresses the need for clear guidelines while recognizing the rapid pace of change. Cannes prefers a case-by-case process: questions are reviewed with General Delegate Thierry Frémaux and the board. She frames AI as a potential tool that can streamline production and free creative labor from repetitive tasks, but insists it cannot substitute for human emotion and artistic authorship. On awards policy, the recent rule making the Palme d’Or automatically eligible for the Oscar for Best International Film is welcomed as an acknowledgement of festivals’ significance, with artistic excellence remaining the guiding principle for juries.
Knobloch also comments on honorary recognitions: after George Lucas, Peter Jackson will receive an Honorary Palme d’Or, a choice she describes as honoring filmmakers who fuse technological ambition with storytelling craft. She greets the decision to host part of The White Lotus filming near the festival as a boost to the event’s cultural visibility and the region’s profile. Above all, she reiterates Cannes’s core commitments: preserving creative freedom, sustaining independent selection and using the festival’s platform to offer equal space to films from fifty countries across twelve intense days — an act of belief in the power of cinema.
