The 2026 Cannes Film Festival starts Tuesday, May 12th, running through May 24th. The Ebert team returns this year with coverage of all of the major films in review and video form. Enjoy this latest segment, with an edited video transcript below.
On today’s segment, direct from Cannes, we’ll review two new films from the festival’s official selection with RogerEbert.com associate editor Robert Daniels.
Robert Daniels:
The first film I’d like to talk about is “Nagi Notes” by Koji Fukada. It is playing in competition, and it’s a pretty mesmerizing, ruminative film that’s set in a small town in Japan. It begins with an architect by the name of Yuriko, who arrives to see her, her former sister-in-law Yuri, who’s a sculptor, and Yuriko and Yuri have been friends for quite some time and remain friends, mostly because they both have failed relationships.
And those failed relationships are really what bind them together.
I mostly liked the film, mostly for its ruminative rhythms and beats. However, in terms of whether it’s going to compete in competition, it might contend for the protagonist, the lead actress, who is absolutely, really fantastic in it. She gives the film a kind of empathetic rhythm, a pathos that brings us into the world of a woman who is pretty locked away from her surroundings and is trying to find meaning and connection in those around her.
Takako Matsu:
When it came to acting, this person, who is a sculptor and got a lot of help from a real sculptor, I went to the actor “Yey”, and she came to Nagi. She helped me throughout the shooting of the film. And it’s thanks to her that I was able to portray this character.
Robert:
And this is one of the things I very much love about it, the photography. The photography brings us into this verdant landscape of rolling hills in a very rural area that includes cows and all the accouterments of living in the middle of nowhere, basically, but living in peace in the middle of nowhere.
The next film I’d like to talk about is” Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” which was the opening film in the Un Certain Regard section, directed by Jane Schoenbrun. This film is part of her media trilogy, which began with their debut, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” which tackled internet culture. Their second film, “I Saw the TV Glow,” was about their love of television series like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and this one is very much their love of horror movies, particularly slashers.
In this film, Hannah Einbinder, who plays Kris, a director, ventures out to the middle-of-nowhere Camp Miasma, which was the setting of a film she very much loved, called Camp Miasma. There lives Gillian Anderson, who is Billy, who was the final girl in that first film. Kris has been hired by a studio to revitalize this moribund franchise into a moneymaking entity.
But she wants more than that. She wants to actually create art. She wants to relive the thing that made these movies special to her, and the things that made a thing that made it special for her is that it was an erotic awakening for her at a very young age.
I thought the performances were stellar, particularly Gillian Anderson, who takes on this kind of southern drawl that reminds one of Dolly Parton, and she’s very much the propulsive engine of this film, granting it its eroticism, its playfulness, and its many eccentricities.
Hannah Einbinder is also fantastic in this film. It’s her meatiest film role to date.
She began her career on television on Hacks. This is similarly a comedic performance, but I think it has a lot of heart and a lot of psychological injury. Yet this is very much a psychodrama, psycho horror. Depending on how you want to look at it. But it’s a psychological drama and horror with great comedic beats, and she doesn’t oversell them.
She plays them mostly straight. She plays them with much sincerity, and with that sincerity, there are real moments of heartache, especially when she’s being open about her inability to connect to others sexually.
This is a film that very much doesn’t just dabble in the slasher genre; it fully embraces it. And because of that, it is incredibly bloody. So that means it’s not for all audiences. But if you’re a fan of slashers, if you’re a fan of gore, if you’re a fan of practical effects and fountains of blood, then this film is excellent.
It’s one of the really great homages to horror films without feeling like a pastiche; it still feels original and plays as original.
The film I’m still most looking forward to at Cannes as part of Directors’ Fortnight is “Diary of a Chambermaid” from the Romanian auteur Radu Jude. Radu Jude is known for his film “Dracula,” which was an A.I. spoof.
He’s also known for “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” which was Romania’s submission to the Academy Awards. He has the propensity to be an artist who is surprising, playful, and quite, quite crude. But his crudeness is often used to critique Romanian society and politics, and capitalism, too. So, no matter if you read the synopsis, or even if someone spoils the film for you, it’s bound to be something that is going to surprise.
So, it’s a film that I’m very much looking forward to from one of the great contemporary auteurs that we have.
Voice over: On today’s Cannes flashback, we’ll take a look at Chaz Ebert’s 2019 interview with the director of “Family Romance, LLC.” The legendary Werner Herzog.
Chaz:
I want to ask about the setting, because when I think of a Werner Herzog movie, not just one thing, because you make all kinds of films, but I think of films like Man Against Nature or Man Against Himself. Some challenge. Here, it’s about a connection set amidst cherry blossoms. Such a beautiful, beautiful setting in Japan. How did you choose Tokyo as a place for your movie?
Werner Herzog:
It was everything because the company is in Tokyo, and I knew the cherry blossom time was coming, so I wanted to take advantage of it. It’s a very, very much made film in a way, because I’m trying to look very deep into the heart of people. And I’m trying to find out what our human condition is, and this curiosity about who we are and what our condition is has never left me.
And that has been the first and foremost connection with Roger, Roger, and speaking of Roger Ebert, yes, I he he he, and he was looking for us. Who are we? What is our present human condition? Where are we moving? What is science fiction, and what is futuristic and still? And when we speak about Family Romance, it is not science fiction, but it’s somehow still a little bit in the future and coming at all of us.
Chaz:
Well, I want to thank you, Werner, for making this film and for doing this interview with us, and I wish you very much success with it.
Werner:
Thank you very much. Yes. And, the film was not just for the world out there. It was also, in a way, done for Roger, because he’s always with me. And I know I must not disappoint him.
Chaz:
Thank you so much.
Voice Over:
That’s all for now, but keep checking back each day at Rogerebert.com/festivals for more reviews, reports, and reactions. See you next time.
