“If you are immortal, what can you be beyond immortal?”
by Ana Stanic
CANNES 2026: The Spanish director reflects on mortality and the strange emptiness of a society where people can live forever but no longer know what it means to truly feel alive
Spanish director María Martínez Bayona joined us to talk about her debut feature The End of It, screening in Cannes Première section of the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Set in a polished near-future world built around eternal youth, the film follows an artist approaching her 250th birthday, who decides to turn her death into one final artistic act. Bayona reflects on mortality, the body, motherhood, beauty and the strange emptiness of a society where people can live forever but no longer know what it means to truly feel alive.
