Overview
- Critics’ Week, Cannes’ oldest independent sidebar for debut and sophomore features, unveiled its 65th lineup Monday and set May 13–21 for this year’s edition with 11 features, 13 shorts and seven competition titles.
- Phuong Mai Nguyen’s In Waves becomes the section’s first animated opening film, while Félix de Givry’s Adieu monde cruel closes the program with Anatomy of a Fall breakout Milo Machado-Graner in the lead.
- This year’s roster omits U.S. filmmakers from both the seven competition titles and four special screenings, with nearly 20 countries represented and France providing the largest share.
- The competition spans urgent subjects including China’s abandoned newborn girls, the 1990s Kosovo conflict, a Mexican family facing HIV stigma, daily life in war-torn Yemen and an Irish Traveller community.
- The jury will present the Sony Discovery Prize for short film, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award and the AMI Paris Grand Prize, with the short-film jury and full shorts slate still to come.