Cannes 2026: "The Electric Kiss" opens Park Chan-wook's festival

The 79th Cannes Film Festival opened on May 12, 2026, with the French period comedy "The Electric Kiss," directed by Pierre Salvadori, and runs through May 23 with twenty-two films in the main competition. South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook serves as jury president for the competition, with the jury introduced by the festival on May 4, 2026, and actor Eye Haïdara hosting the evening ceremonies.

The festival's visual identity this year leans on its own mythology. The official poster, designed by Hartland Villa, features Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis on the set of "Thelma & Louise" (1991), a choice that turned the 2026 edition into an anniversary homage to one of cinema's defining images of freedom.

One of the season's emotional high points has already been confirmed: Barbra Streisand receives an honorary Palme d'Or, an honor the festival announced in March 2026, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Professionally, the Cannes carpet remains the most formal red carpet on the calendar, with a dress code enforced at the theater doors and premieres that begin with the ritual climb of the festival-steps at the Palais. For European fashion houses, the twelve days of the festival function as a moving showroom: every evening premiere is an opportunity to place couture on a carpet photographed from every angle in daylight and floodlight alike.

With Park Chan-wook's jury deliberating through May 23, when the Palme d'Or is awarded, the midpoint of this edition belongs to the films themselves, and to the nightly theater of the steps, where the world's most strictly dressed audience keeps arriving on schedule. When the jury's decision arrives on the final Saturday, it will cap an edition that has already given the photograph archives plenty to work with, from the opening-night climb to the nightly double-bill premieres that keep the Croisette's photographers working past midnight.