Ioncinema

Showing no signs of slowing down with the output of Charlatan (2020), Green Border (2023), and Franz (2025) this decade, Agnieszka Holland is entering the sewing circle following film history’s most iconic actress in Marlene Dietrich. The trades announce that the Polish filmmaker will direct Berlinweh – Yearning for a Home – a biopic in four time periods. The big question is who’ll take on the role — and will this be a solo performance or filled in by several actresses? X Filme Creative Pool’s Uwe Schott and Josephine Blume, Mike Downey, and Marlene Film Production’s Šárka Cimbalová are producing. No word yet on when this moves into production but we guess the timeline would be for a 2028 drop.… Read the rest

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Blood Relatives: Simon Treads Familiar Water with Continued Autofiction

After winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for her 2022 sophomore film Alcarras, Carla Simón returns to the autobiographical roots inspiring Summer 1993 (2017), her debut feature. The narrative of a young girl who lost both parents to AIDS and is sent to live with relatives blossoms into a teenager’s search for identity in Romeria (an annual religious pilgrimage in Spain). Names and locations are changed with Simon’s return to this theme, which only shares a kinship through utilizing a main protagonist forced to confront the ignorance and resentment harbored by her estranged relatives.… Read the rest

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She broke onto the scene when her 2023 short landed in the Sundance Film Festival (it was our top ranked short of that edition) and from there Alexandra Qin has been riding a wave morphing the short into her ambitious feature film debut. Working with themes of desire, control, compulsion, connection and self-destruction, here is everything we know so far (American Indie Edition) for … Alexandra Qin’s Thirstygirl.

Conceived from the 2023 short, Qin was selected as one of the six writers for The Black List inaugural Projects Lab and after that was selected for 2025 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Labs.… Read the rest

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After a trio of shorts a decade or so back, Polish filmmaker Aga Woszczyńska landed on the film scene when her feature debut Silent Land shored up in the prestigious Platform section at TIFF back in 2021 for the hybrid edition of the fest. Pandemic ravaged her showcase, but she returns this year (most probably) with a sophomore feature that examines relationships under pressure, but this time expands into ecological thriller territory and mystery — an internal and external collapse. Here is everything we know so far for … Aga Woszczyńska’s Black Water.

Slowly patched together in late 2023, final funds were being added to the project in 2024 (it was part of the Venice Gap-Financing Market) with production taking place in late 2025 on the Åland Islands, an autonomous Finnish archipelago in the Baltic Sea.… Read the rest

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Rebecca Marder, recently seen in Ozon’s The Stranger, Nadia Melliti, who captured the Cannes Best Actress prize for La petite dernière, and Antoine Reinartz (Anatomy of a Fall) are set to lead the cast of Chercher la fille, the third feature from Thomas Salvador. The Cineuropa folks report that production has already begun in Paris and is scheduled to wrap next month. Salvador and Sophie Cattani round out the ensemble. The film is produced by Julie Salvador, with Olivier Marguerit composing the score and Alexis Kavyrchine serving as cinematographer. Salvador’s last feature was La montagne (2022) – the magical realist alpine misadventure (some rather trippy moments in this film) was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight — so perhaps we are setting this up for a repeat Croisette showcase.… Read the rest

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IONCINEMA.com’s Chief Film Critic Nicholas Bell reviewed the entire competition and more. Here is a comprehensive guide to all the feature films across all sections, including logged reviews and forthcoming ones. Our Cannes coverage continues well beyond the festival dates.

Competition
All of a Sudden Soudain – Ryusuke Hamaguchi [Review]
Garance – Jeanne Herry [Review]
The Beloved – Rodrigo Sorogoyen [https://www.ioncinema.com/reviews/rodrigo-sorogoyen-the-beloved-el-ser-querido-review]
Histoires de la Nuit – Léa Mysius [Review]
Amarga Navidad – Pedro Almodóvar [Review]
La bola negra – Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi [Review]
Coward – Lukas Dhont [Review]
The Dreamed Adventure – Valeska Grisebach [Review]
Fatherland – Paweł Pawlikowski [Review]
Fjord – Cristian Mungiu [Review]
Gentle Monster – Marie Kreutzer [Review]
Hope – Na Hong-jin [Review]
Notre Salut – Emmanuel Marre [Review]
The Man I Love – Ira Sachs [Review]
Minotaur – Andrey Zvyagintsev [Review]
Moulin – László Nemes [Review]
Nagi Notes – Koji Fukada [Review]
Paper Tiger – James Gray [Review]
Parallel Tales – Asghar Farhadi [Review]
Sheep in the Box – Hirokazu Kore-eda [Review]
L’Inconnue – Arthur Harari [Review]
La Vie d’une Femme – Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet [Review]

Un Certain Regard
All the Lovers in the Night – Yukiko Sode
Ben’Imana – Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo
Club Kid – Jordan Firstman
Congo Boy – Rafiki Fariala
Elephants in the Fog – Abinash Bikram Shah
Everytime – Sandra Wollner
Forever Your Maternal Animal – Valentina Maurel
A Girl’s Story – Judith Godrèche
I’ll Be Gone in June – Katharina Rivilis
Iron Boy – Louis Clichy
The Meltdown – Manuela Martelli
La más dulce – Laïla Marrakchi [Review]
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma – Jane Schoenbrun [Review]
Titanic Ocean – Konstantina Kotzamani [Review]
Ulya – Viestur Kairish
Victorian Psycho – Zachary Wigon
Quelques Mots d’Amour – Rudi Rosenberg
Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep – Rakan Mayasi
Ulysse (closing film) – Laetitia Masson

Midnight Screenings
Colony – Yeon Sang-ho
Full Phil – Quentin Dupieux
Jim Queen and the Quest for Chloroqueer – Nicolas Athané and Marco Nguyen
Roma Elastica – Bertrand Mandico
Species – Marion Le Coroller

Cannes Premiere
Aquí – Tiago Guedes
The End of It – Maria Martínez Bayona
The Samurai and the Prisoner – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Mary Magdalene – Gessica Généus
The Match – Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco
Mariage au goût d’orange – Christophe Honoré
Si Tu Penses Bien – Géraldine Nakache
When the Night Falls – Daniel Auteuil
Visitation – Volker Schlöndorff

Special Screenings
Ashes – Diego Luna
Avedon – Ron Howard
Cantona – David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas
Che Guevara: The Last Companions – Christophe Réveille
Groundswell – Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell
John Lennon: The Last Interview – Steven Soderbergh
Marvelous Mornings – Avril Besson
Molière, Cyrano and the Young King – Michel Leclerc
Rehearsals for a Revolution – Pegah Ahangarani
Spring – Rostislav Kirpičenko
Tangles – Leah Nelson
Le Triangle d’Or – Hélène Rosselet-Ruiz
Women on Trial – Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller

Out of Competition
Crescendo – Agnes Jaoui
La Bataille de Gaulle: L’Âge de Fer – Antonin Baudry
Diamond – Andy Garcia
Forsaken – Vincent Garenq
Her Private Hell – Nicolas Winding Refn [Review]
The Electric Kiss – Pierre Salvadori [Review]
Karma – Guillaume Canet

Directors’ Fortnight
9 Temples To Heaven – Sompot Chidgasornpongse
Atonement – Reed Van Dyk
Butterfly Jam – Kantemir Balagov [Review]
Clarissa – Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri
Death Has No Master – Jorge Thielen Armand
The Diary of a Chambermaid – Radu Jude
Dora – July Jung
La Libertad Doble – Lisandro Alonso
Gabin – Maxence Voiseux
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning – Clio Barnard
Low Expectations – Eivind Landsvik
Once Upon a Time in Harlem – William Greaves and David Greaves
La Perra – Dominga Sotomayor
Shana – Lila Pinell [Review]
Thanks for Coming – Alain Cavalier
Too Many Beasts – Sarah Arnold
Le Vertige – Quentin Dupieux
Viva Carmen – Sebastien Laundenbach
We Are Aliens – Kohei Kadowaki
Les Roches Rouges – Bruno Dumont (Special Screenings)

Critics’ Week
Viva – Aina Clotet
Dua – Blerta Basholli
A Girl Unknown – Zou Jing
La Gradiva – Marine Atlan
Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building – Bruno Santamaría [Review]
The Station – Sara Ishaq [Review]
Tin Castle – Alexander Murphy

Special Screenings
Adieu Monde Cruel – Félix de Givry
Flesh and Fuel – Pierre Le Gall [Review]
In Waves – Phuong Mai Nguyen
Stonewall – Julien Gaspar-Oliveri… Read the rest

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The jury of Leila Bekhti and peers Thomas Cailley, Angele Diabang, Laura Samani, and Lebanese composer Khaled Mouzanar handed out the prizing for the Un Certain Regard section (and we have those moments captured on video). Sandra Wollner deserving won the Prix Un Certain Regard for Everytime. Here are all the winners:

Prix Un Certain Regard: Everytime / Sandra Wollner

Jury Prize: Elephants in the Fog / Abinash Bikram Shah

Special Jury Prize: Iron Boy / Louis Clichy

Best Actress: Daniela Marín Navarro, Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas / Forever Your Maternal Animal

Best Actor: Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset / Congo Boy

… Read the rest

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Last week Clive Owen let it slip that he was working on a new project by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi (we’ve been patiently waiting for his sophomore post The Tribe effort) and now we’ve got the first wave of updates in terms of the title and subject line. The film goes by the title of Radioactive and the World of Reel folks reveal that the project will tackle the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – the highly radioactive zone has become a de facto ecological reserve — no hunters or encroaching people here.

The Tribe was a massive film that broke out of Cannes Critics’ Week.… Read the rest

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Beginning with Karlovy Vary world preemed The Wednesday Child (2015) and then the Venice-TIFF preemed Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2020), Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horvát has been attracted to themes of female identity, connection and intimacy and looks to be moving towards those themes and more with a sci-fi twist for her upcoming Hungarian/Austrian/French/Bosnian coproduction English-language feature debut. Here is everything we know so far for … Lili Horvát‘s My Notes on Mars.



Word first dropped on the project back in August of 2024 when the film project was lining up for a Spring 2025 shoot.… Read the rest

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Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen is set to take the plunge, not only will he be switching languages, but he’ll be changing landscapes for his upcoming third feature film (which was recently featured 2026 Investors Circle Initiative). Lensing on Dream Come True (akja En Ægte Drømmer) is set to begin later this year in Finland, Denmark’s Jutland and France with thesps Magnus Millang, Paprika Steen, Ellen Kihri and Ragnhild Kaasgaard toplining. Cineuropa reports that Aamu Film Company’s Jussi Rantamäki and Snowglobe’s Katrin Pors will produce. Kuosmanen directed The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (read ★★★½ review) and Compartment No.… Read the rest

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