It has been announced that French actress Leila Bekhti will serve as the president of the jury for “Un Certain Regard” at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
Bekti, a Cannes regular who broke out in Jacques Audiard’s The Prophet and won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 2011 for All Things Glittering, will be joined on the jury by Senegalese producer and director Ángel Diaban, Italian director and screenwriter Laura Samani, French director Thomas Kiley and Lebanese composer Khaled Mouzanar.
“Receiving this honor from the Cannes Film Festival is a source of immeasurable joy for me. I am filled with deep gratitude,” said Bekti, whose other notable credits include Paris, Je T’aime, The Source, Sink or Swim and The Restless. “For the first time, I find myself in this unique position: watching, listening, sharing and celebrating. Making films has taught me that cinema is a place where we meet others, ourselves and the world. Discovering cinema together with the jury and living this timeless experience is both a responsibility and a joy.”
Bekti added: “I am also looking forward to the exchanged perspectives, dialogue, and questions that constitute the richness of this living art. And in the end, I will be taking the most precious seat of all: the audience seat.”
This year’s Un Certain Regard competition opens with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, directed by Jane Schoenbrunn and starring Hanna Einbinder (The Hux) and Gillian Anderson (Sex Education), and also includes Jordan Firstman’s directorial debut, The Club Kid, starring himself, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva and Eldar Isgandarov. The 12-strong lineup includes films such as Laila Malakchi’s Strawberries, Sandra Wallner’s Everytime, Lakhan Mayasi’s Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep, and Avinash Bikram Shah’s Elephant in the Mist.
