Phuong Mai Nguyen’s In Waves, an animated feature adaptation of L.A. illustrator AJ Dungo’s eponymous cult 2019 graphic novel set in California, will open the 65th edition of Cannes Critics’ Week.
It is among 11 features, selected from 1050 feature-length submissions, unveiled by Cannes Critics’ Week on Monday for its 2026 edition. Scroll down for full list.
Inspired by Dungo’s real-life love story, In Waves follows two young lovers, a skateboarder and a surfer, who first meet at school and hook-up later, and are then tested by illness, but refuse to be overwhelmed by grief against the backdrop of the sunshine and surf of California.
The voice cast of the English-language version is led by Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu, while the French version features Lyna Khoudri, Rio Vega, Paul Kirscher and Biran Ba. Cannes Critics’ Week is aiming to play both versions.
The feature is produced by Paris-based Silex Films and Charades with Anonymous Content. French Singaporean director Nguyen was Oscar-shortlisted for her short My Home.
In Waves is the first ever animated feature to open Cannes Critics’ Week although the parallel section has a strong animation track-record.
It previously welcomed I Lost My Body, which went on to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Animated Feature category of the 92nd Academy Awards, while more recent animation selections include Japanese director Momoko Seto’s Dandelion’s Odyssey which closed the section last year.
Seven films have been selected for the competition.
They include Chinese director Zou Jing’s A Girl Unknown exploring the implications of the abandonment of thousands of newborn baby girls in China from the 1980s to 2,000 as a result of the country’s one-child policy.
The China-shot drama follows the story of a young girl who ends up with three different families across her infancy and adolescence.
Based between L.A. and Shanghai, Zou Jing showed her short film Lili Alone in Critics’ Week in 2021. She then developed A Girl Unknown with the support of the section’s Next Step program, supporting emerging directors in the transition from short to feature-length film, winning the initiative’s Next Step prize in 2024.
After years of development and production, Scottish Yemeni director Sara Ishaq will unveil her long-gestated drama The Station.
The warm-hearted work revolves around Layal who runs a women-only petrol station in a gender-segregated, war-torn village in Yemen. The only male who is tolerated at the station, which becomes a special meeting place for the women of the villages, is Layal’s 12-year-old brother, who she is determined to keep out of the conflict.
Kosovan director Blerta Basholli, who made waves with her 2021 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Hive, will make her Cannes debut with second feature Dua. It explores the repercussions of the 1990s Kosovo War through the titular Dua, a 13-year-old girl whose daily life and family are impacted by the conflict.
Latin America will be represented by Mexican director Bruno Santamaria Razo’s 6 Meses En El Edificio Rosa Con Azul, which translates as “six months in a pink and blue building”. Set in the 1990s and the HIV crisis, the family drama evokes the memories of a young boy faced with his father’s mysterious illness.
The selection also includes French director Marine Atlan’s first feature La Gradiva, a choral movie starring Antonia Buresi as a Latin teacher who takes her high school students on a trip to Pompei, where emotions and desires spill out against the backdrop of the ancient site and its beauty.
Continuing the section’s recent trend of spotlighting documentaries, the lineup also features French Irish director Alexander Murphy’s Tin Castle about an Irish traveller family and their life in mobile home. It is Murphy’s second feature documentary after 2025 work Goodbye Sisters, about two Nepali sisters who leave Kathmandu for their native village to harvest the valuable caterpillar fungus, yarsagumba in the hope that the profits will change their lives.
Recent Cannes Critics’ Week documentary selections The Brink Of Dreams and Imago, went on to win Cannes’ Golden Eye, open to documentaries across the Official Selection and parallel sections, in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
The competition also features Spanish actress Aina Clotet debut feature Viva. Described as a bittersweet comedy set in Catalonia, the work stars Clotet as a woman rethinking her personal and professional life as she recovers from breast cancer during an extreme heat wave.
The seven films will compete for the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award (Le prix Fondation Louis Roederer de la Révélation) and the Le Grand Prix AMI Paris.
Playing Out Of Competition, French directors Julien Gaspar-Oliveri’s Stonewall (La Frappe) and Pierre Le Gall’s Flesh and Fuel (Du Fioul Dans Les Artères) which will debut as Special Screenings.
Stonewall, starring Bastien Bouillon and newcomers Diego Murgia and Romane Fringeli, is an immersive drama about a young brother and sister whose lives take a dark turn with the return of their violent father after a spell in prison.
Alexis Manenti and Julian Swiezewski co-star in romantic comedy Flesh and Fuel as two truck drivers who fall in love after a chance meeting while on the road and then try to keep the romance alive despite the distances between them.
The section will close with French director Félix de Givry’s Adieu Monde Cruel, starring Anatomy of a Fall discovery Milo Machado-Graner as a teenager who fails in a suicide attempt, having announced his intentions in a letter to his family and classmate.
Ashamed, he spends the night wandering the streets of his small town until a girl from his high school recognises him. Machado-Graner is joined in the cast by Jane Beever, while Françoise Lebrun provides a voiceover.
The section’s short film lineup, selected from 2,400 entries, and jury will be announced in the coming days.
The 65th Cannes Critics’ Week will run from May 13 to 21.
The 2026 Cannes Critics’ Week Lineup:
Competition
Dua
Kosovo, Switzerland, France
Blerta Basholli
A Girl Unknown (Wu ming nü hai)
China, France
Dir: Zou Jing
La Gradiva
France, Italy
Dir: Marine Atlan
Seis Meses en el edificio rosa con azul
Mexico, Denmark, Brazil
Bruno Santamaria Razo
The Station (Al Mahattah)
Yemen, Jordan, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway
Dir: Sara Ishaq
Tin Castle
Ireland, France
Dir: Alexander Murphy
Viva
Spain
Dir: Aina Clotet
Special Screenings
In Waves (opening film)
France, Belgium
Dir: Phuong Mai Nguyen
Stonewall (La Frappe)
France
Dir Julien Gaspar-Oliveri
Flesh and Fuel (Du Fioul dans les artères)
France
Dir: Pierre Le Gall
Adieu monde cruel
France, Belgium
Dir: Félix de Givry