The 79th Cannes Film Festival has begun the 12th of this month and will end on the 23rd. As every year, the Croisette takes the pulse of world cinema, and the Italian presence remains hard to ignore: Italy is present, but almost never where it matters most. It is not entirely absent. There are co-productions, Italian actors, Italian film sets, a widespread production track and a short film selected for the Quinzaine des Cinéastes. But there is no Italian feature film in the Competition. There is no Italian film capable of occupying the festival’s symbolic centre stage. The names that had ensured continuity in recent years are missing: Moretti, Sorrentino, Garrone, Rohrwacher, Bellocchio, Martone.
The point is not to voice a national complaint. Cannes owes no reserved places to anyone, not even to a country with Italy’s cinematic history. Each edition starts afresh with the films that are available, ready, competitive and capable of fitting into an international selection. This is precisely why Italy’s absence in 2026 carries weight: not as an insult, but as a sign. If none of the great filmmakers have a film ready and the system is not producing alternatives strong enough to replace them, then the problem is not just Cannes. It lies in the depth of the industry.
This year’s Official Selection sends a very clear message. The Competition features Pedro Almodóvar, Asghar Farhadi, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Cristian Mungiu, László Nemes, Paweł Pawlikowski and Andreï Zvyagintsev. It is a map of the most powerful international authors: established cinemas, directors already recognised as authorities, and production systems capable of delivering films ready at just the right moment. Italy, as an independent national production centre, does not feature on this map. Nor does it feature in Un Certain Regard, the section that often allows less prominent film industries or new generations of filmmakers to gain visibility.
There is, however, something Italian to be found. Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, Arthur Harari’s The Unknown and Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales all involve Italian co-productions. Bertrand Mandico’s Roma Elastica is supported by Cinecittà, Rai Cinema and draws on an explicitly Italian setting. These are significant contributions, but they are not enough to suggest that Italian cinema is truly at the heart of the festival. Rather, they tell us something else: Italy remains valuable as a production partner, a location, an infrastructure, a repository of memory and a source of professional expertise. But it struggles to present itself as a cohesive force of auteur cinema.
Perhaps the most significant example is Antonio Donato’s Oh Boys, an Italian short film selected for the Quinzaine des Cinéastes. The Quinzaine is not a minor section in the trivial sense of the term. It is a parallel, autonomous section, established in 1969, with a function similar to that of the Giornate degli Autori in Venice: not the institutional heart of the festival, but a space for discovery, risk-taking and a counterpoint to the main selection. It is here that freer films, emerging filmmakers and less tamed perspectives often find a home. For this reason, Oh Boys should not be treated as some sort of folkloric consolation prize. It is a genuine presence. Yet it remains a peripheral presence compared to the vast void of Italian feature films in the Official Selection.
The question, then, is not why Cannes did not choose Italy. The question is what Italy managed to bring to Cannes this year. A major festival does not simply select good films. It selects films that are ready, well-backed, marketable and accessible within an international network of producers, agents, distributors, sales agents and reputations. Cannes is a machine for conferring legitimacy. To be selected means gaining cultural and industrial value. To be left out means missing a crucial stage in the distribution process.
Here, Italy’s absence becomes more interesting than the controversy itself. In recent years, the national film production system has gone through a period of severe instability: delays, uncertainty over funding, changes to tax credits, difficulties for independent productions, and slowdowns on sets. The film industry operates on a long-term basis. The films that do or do not make it to festivals today are the result of decisions taken many months earlier. If part of production grinds to a halt, the effect is not immediately apparent. It becomes evident later, when there is a shortage of finished films.
Cannes 2026 therefore seems less like an aesthetic rejection than an industrial analysis. Italy continues to have talent, skilled workers, actors, technicians, locations, studios and a rich cinematic heritage. But all this is not enough if it does not produce films capable of making a sustained impact on the international circuit. The risk is that Italy may become a country where others come to film, rather than a country capable of exporting its own cinematic vision.
Copyright © 2026 - Mondo Internazionale APS - Tutti i diritti riservati
Fonte immagine:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/81497361@N00/88495876
Fonti:
https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/press/press-releases/the-films-of-the-official-selection-2026/
https://www.quinzaine-cineastes.fr/en/news/la-selection-2026
https://www.quinzaine-cineastes.fr/en/film/oh-boys
https://capitalist.it/cinema-italiano-crisi-cannes-2026/
https://www.ilpost.it/2026/04/14/cannes-2026-assenza-film-italiani/
https://www.cineblog.it/post/cannes-2026-senza-italiani-assenza-crisi-cinema-nazionale
Share the post
L'Autore
Jacopo Cantoni
Laureato in Cinema presso l'Alma mater Studiorum di Bologna, mi cimento nella scrittura di articoli inerenti a questo bellissimo campo, la Settima Arte. Attualmente frequento il corso Methods and Topics in Arts Management offerto dall'università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Tag
Cannes Film Festival Cannes 2026 79 Cinema Italiano Garrone Moretti