– CANNES 2026: With the Palme d’Or and the Best Director Award, the French company leads the way in terms of quality, but The Match Factory comes out on top in terms of quantity with three awards
Fjord by Cristian Mungiu
Acting as a catalyst for the excellent deals already struck in the Marché du Film, the winners’ list from the competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, along with the awards presented in the Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections, have established a new pecking order amongst the numerous international sales companies operating on the Croisette. And this year, it is the French company Goodfellas that has hit the jackpot with the Palme d’Or for Fjord by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (who also won the FIPRESCI Prize, the Citizens’ Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize) and the Best Director Award awarded to Spanish filmmakers Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for The Black Ball. It is worth noting that this is the ninth Palme d’Or to go to Vincent Maraval’s team (in its various iterations).
However, in strictly quantitative terms, three official competition awards went to the German company The Match Factory (owned by MUBI since 2022), with the Best Director Award going jointly to Poland’s Pawel Pawlikowski for Fatherland, the Jury Prize, won by The Dreamed Adventure by German director Valeska Grisebach, and the Best Actor Award, which went to the duo Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne for their performance in Coward by Belgian director Lukas Dhont.
Taking third place in this Cannes ranking of international distributors is the French group mk2, which won the Grand Prix for Minotaur by the Russian-in-exile Andrei Zvyagintsev, as well as the Caméra d’Or for Ben’Imana by the Rwandan director Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo (unveiled in Un Certain Regard and also honoured with a FIPRESCI prize) and the Critics’ Week Grand Prix for La Gradiva by French director Marine Atlan.
Charades also scooped up three awards, with the Best Screenplay Award going to Frenchman Emmanuel Marre for the Franco-Belgian production A Man of His Time, the Un Certain Regard prize awarded to Everytime by Austrian director Sandra Wollner, and the Audience Award in the Directors’ Fortnight going to I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning by British director Clio Barnard.
Finally, in the Official Selection, it is worth noting the impressive achievement by Cinéfrance, which produced and is distributing All of a Sudden by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi; the film was honoured at Cannes with the Best Actress Award, shared by his compatriot Tao Okamoto and the Belgian actress Virginie Efira.
Other international sales companies whose films were honoured on the Croisette include The Party Film Sales, which won the Best Actor Award in the Un Certain Regard section (Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset for Congo Boy by Rafiki Fariala), the L’Œil d’Or Award for Best Documentary (Rehearsals for a Revolution by Iranian director Pegah Ahangarani) and the SACD Award in Critics’ Week (the duo Blerta Basholli and Nicole Borgeat, writers of Dua, directed by Basholli).
Playtime also received high praise, winning the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize for the animated film Iron Boy by French director Louis Clichy, and the Europa Cinemas Label (awarded in the Directors’ Fortnight) for Too Many Beasts by Italian-Swiss director Sarah Arnold.
The Croisette also smiled on the Belgian company Best Friend Forever (Un Certain Regard Jury Prize for Elephants in the Fog by Nepalese director Abinash Bikram Shah), the Greek company Heretic (Un Certain Regard Best Actress Award for the trio of Marina de Tavira, Daniela Marín Navarro – Mariangel Villegas in Forever Your Maternal Animal by Costa Rican director Valentina Maurel), the German company Films Boutique (Special Mention in the L’Œil d’Or competition for Tin Castle by Franco-Irish director Alexander Murphy) and three other French sales agents: Loco Films (Critics’ Week Revelation Award for the Spanish director Aina Clotet for Alive, which she also directed), Pyramide International (Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at Critics’ Week for A Girl Unknown by the Chinese director Zou Jing, which also received the FIPRESCI Prize in the parallel sections) and Les Films du Losange (SACD Authors’ Favourite – which recognises a French-language film in the Directors’ Fortnight – for Shana by French director Lila Pinell).
(Translated from French)
