Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, “Elephants in the Fog” is the feature debut of Nepali writer-director Abinash Bikram Shah, and the first Nepali film ever selected for the section. Set in Thori, a forested village in Nepal’s southern Terai plains, the film follows Pirati, the matriarch of a Kinnar family, an ancient third-gender community both revered and feared whose dream of escaping with the man she loves is shattered when one of her daughters disappears during a nightly patrol against wild elephants. Pushpa Thing Lama stars in the lead role.

The film’s genesis lies in an unlikely place. During the Covid lockdowns, Abinash Bikram Shah was scrolling through TikTok when he came across videos of Kinnar women dancing, joking, performing with joy. The comments underneath were vile, filled with transphobia. But the women kept posting. That contradiction pulled him in. He visited the community repeatedly before writing a single line, drawn to the dynamics of a family that is not biological but no less real. “They are mostly outcast from society, from the family, and they found a new family to live in just to survive, just to belong somewhere. And the family that they live in, it’s so similar to what you call a “normal” family. It’s so dysfunctional for sure, but at the same time, there’s so much love, warmth, and everything”.

What Abinash Bikram Shah wanted to test was a question that traditional family dramas rarely ask: what happens when someone disappears from a chosen family? The pain is the same, but the world’s response is not. “We have all seen films about biological families where someone goes missing and how desperately they search. Here, the challenge is that they are not a biological family. But what if one goes missing? The pain and strength of Pirati as a mother, regardless of the origin of the relationship, is the motor and the centre of the movie”.

Casting Pushpa Thing Lama as Pirati was instinctive. Abinash Bikram Shah describes seeing her for the first time as love at first sight. But the path to the performance was long and difficult. Heavily influenced by Bollywood, Pushpa Thing Lama‘s initial work in front of the camera was far from the naturalism the film demanded. Workshops and acting lessons didn’t help. What eventually unlocked the performance was something simpler: closeness. “Slowly, I became closer to her, and we built a trust factor. It was a very long process because Pirati is such a complex character. It took a lot of time, but it was worth it”.

The title carries layers of meaning that Abinash Bikram Shah traces back to a story told to him by a mother in the community: the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each one touches a different part of the animal and mistakes it for something else entirely. “She said that in Nepal, people see them with that same limited perspective. They see them as Kinnar women with powers or as sex workers, but they don’t see them as whole human beings”. Abinash Bikram Shah then discovered that elephants are matriarchal animals, which deepened the parallel with Pirati’s family. There is also the contradiction at the heart of Hindu culture: worshipping the elephant-headed god while scaring real elephants away. “My job as a director and writer is to bring that elephant out of the fog. We want their blessing, but we don’t want them around. This analogy flows so well with the story”.

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Presented at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes during the 79th Festival de Cannes, “Free Eliza (Notes On An Anatomical Imperfection)” is the debut feature by Greek filmmaker Alexandra Matheou, a sharp and emotionally layered exploration of identity, performance and emotional repression.

The film follows Eliza, a hotel employee unable to smile physically, despite working in an environment where constant cheerfulness is expected. For Alexandra Matheou, the idea emerged from a real encounter with a hotel worker whose expression stayed with her long after their meeting. “She had the saddest face in the world,” the director recalled. “I remember writing a quick note on my phone after seeing her name tag: Eliza.”

That brief encounter became the foundation for a wider reflection on hospitality spaces as artificial environments where workers are expected to leave their personal struggles behind to perform emotional availability for guests.

According to Alexandra Matheou, hotels operate as microcosms of contemporary society, places where appearance matters more than emotional truth. The director draws a direct connection between this environment and the performative culture encouraged by social media.

“Everything online becomes a polished version of yourself,” she said. “None of the bad things make it there.”

Although “Free Eliza” critiques systems that demand constant positivity, the film deliberately avoids bitterness or cynicism. Alexandra Matheou, who describes herself as naturally optimistic, sees optimism itself as a form of resistance in the current social climate.

“The world makes it very hard to be optimistic,” she explained. “Settling for cynicism is easier.”

For the filmmaker, cynicism disconnects people from tenderness and empathy, while optimism allows space for human connection even during difficult times. The film, therefore, embraces sadness not as weakness, but as an essential part of emotional life.

“Sadness shouldn’t be hidden,” she said. “It should be embraced and processed because that’s part of the human condition.”

This balance between melancholy and warmth gives the film its particular tone, combining emotional vulnerability with moments of humour and quiet absurdity.

One of the most striking aspects of Free Eliza is the way its protagonist refuses victimhood. Despite existing within a system constantly judging her appearance and emotional behaviour, Eliza maintains a strong sense of inner freedom.

Alexandra Matheou explained that many of her female characters share this quality. They are often outsiders within their environments, yet they never surrender their individuality in order to fit social expectations.

“I’m done watching women as victims on screen,” the director stated. “I want a greater range of female characters.”

For her, Eliza’s resistance lies precisely in her refusal to perform emotional agreeability. The film challenges cultural expectations surrounding femininity, particularly the pressure imposed on women to appear pleasant, accommodating and emotionally accessible at all times.

“The label of a ‘difficult woman’ is something I detest,” Alexandra Matheou said. “Women are constantly taught to act agreeably.”

The director also connected these ideas to her own personal experiences, acknowledging how often women are encouraged to suppress discomfort or disagreement in order to avoid judgment.

Despite addressing loneliness, social pressure and emotional alienation, Free Eliza remains unexpectedly funny. Humour, according to Alexandra Matheou, is essential to her way of observing human behaviour.

“Even in dramatic scenes, I like to infuse humour,” she said. “Sometimes life is tragic and ridiculous at the same time.”

The film’s voiceover became a key tool in balancing these emotional tones, allowing the audience access to Eliza’s intelligence, irony and emotional richness. Through humour, the character resists becoming defined by external perceptions.

By the film’s conclusion, Free Eliza gradually dismantles the audience’s assumptions about its protagonist. What initially appears as sadness or deficiency becomes something entirely different: freedom from the obligation to perform.

“There’s nothing to fix here,” Alexandra Matheou said. “Only something to embrace.”

Asked whether authenticity has become a radical act in a world built around performance, the director answered without hesitation.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “The world tells you to be yourself, but only if that self fits what society considers acceptable.”

For Alexandra Matheou, the challenge today is preserving a connection to one’s inner voice amid the noise of social expectations, digital performance, and cultural pressure. In Free Eliza, that resistance becomes both political and deeply human.

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Presented in the Cannes Première section of the 79th edition of the Festival de Cannes, “Kokurojo – The Samurai and the Prisoner” marks the first classical samurai film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Known internationally for works that span horror, thriller, and psychological drama, the Japanese filmmaker approached the jidaigeki genre through the figure of Araki Murashige, a 16th-century samurai remembered in Japanese history as a coward and traitor.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa explained that the project began when a producer gave him the novel that later became the basis for the film. What fascinated him was not Araki Murashige‘s historical reputation but the possibility of understanding the reasons behind his actions.

“He is known as the samurai who abandoned his people and escaped alone,” the director said. “But in this story, I could finally see why he may have done that.”

For Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the character’s refusal to obey the rigid values surrounding him creates a direct connection with contemporary society. Rather than portraying Araki Murashige as merely weak or dishonourable, the filmmaker sees him as someone attempting to free himself from systems that imprison individuals psychologically and morally.

Although Araki Murashige can easily be described as an anti-hero, Kiyoshi Kurosawa resists that definition. The director acknowledged that the character appears unconventional within the samurai tradition, yet he believes the essence of heroism lies precisely in choosing one’s own path despite social judgment.

“Even if people call him an anti-hero, he follows the path he believes in,” he explained. “To me, somebody like that is a true hero.”

This perspective shapes the emotional core of “Kokurojo – The Samurai and the Prisoner”. Rather than celebrating military glory or codes of honour, the film examines personal freedom, fear and moral ambiguity. The historical setting becomes a way to question modern structures of conformity and obedience.

The film also incorporates elements of mystery, betrayal, and growing suspicion among political figures. Asked about the role of paranoia in systems of power, Kiyoshi Kurosawa offered a reflection that extends beyond the film’s historical setting.

According to the director, power itself generates fear. The more authority individuals accumulate, the more terrified they become of losing it. That fear ultimately creates isolation and paranoia.

“The more power you have, the more fear increases,” he said. “People begin imagining terrible things that might happen if they let go.”

Without naming contemporary political figures, Kiyoshi Kurosawa suggested that modern leaders could learn something from Murashige’s decision to escape the structures surrounding him.

“I would be happy if even one person with power could let go and walk away,” he remarked. “That would require real courage.”

Despite a career spanning several decades and genres, Kiyoshi Kurosawa continues to seek new cinematic challenges. For this film, however, innovation meant returning to the past.

The director explained that he revisited many Japanese jidaigeki masterpieces from the 1950s, a period he considers the genre’s peak. Rather than imitating those films directly, he used them as a foundation to rethink how period cinema can exist today.

“I wanted to relearn from the masterpieces,” he said. “That became the new challenge for me.”

For Kiyoshi Kurosawa, engaging with film history is not an exercise in nostalgia. Instead, it represents a way of creating something contemporary while acknowledging forgotten cinematic traditions.

“Doing something new is often connected to rediscovering something from the past,” he noted. “That process itself becomes a new form of filmmaking.”

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During the 79th edition of the Cannes international Film Festival we spoke with the director Sompot Chidgasornpongse for his new film “9 Temples to Heaven“, presented here at the festival in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes section. The film is a beautiful spiritual and human journey that explores the true significance and cultural richness of the “nine temples pilgrimage” tradition in Thai society. This ritual indeed reflects deeply rooted traditions and spiritual beliefs that shape everyday life and artistic expressions in Thailand.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, what director Sompot Chidgasornpongse explained is how the journey we see in his “9 Temples to Heaven” film serve as a meaningful spiritual practice for many Thais, symbolizing luck, reverence, and communal identity. This pilgrimage often involves visiting sacred sites, each holding historical and spiritual importance, allowing practitioners to connect with their cultural heritage. In Thai cinema, religion and culture are strictly connected, as often shown also by his master Apitchatpong Weerasethakul’s works. Everyday life in always tangled with the spiritual one, binding communities through shared rituals and beliefs. By portraying these elements authentically, “9 Temples to Heaven” enhances global understanding of Thailand’s spiritual tapestry rooted in the tradition.

“9 Temples to Heaven” by director Sompot Chidgasornpongse demonstrates how integral religion and ritual are within Thai culture, and how the temples symbolize more than religious practice: they embody a sense of continuity, comfort, and unity. Whether depicted through cinematic storytelling or daily rituals, this film settles as a cornerstone in portraying Thai spiritual life and cultural identity, illustrating their enduring influence and intertwining with each other.

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Winner of the People’s Choice Audience Award at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning” is the fifth feature by British filmmaker Clio Barnard, adapted by Enda Walsh from the novel of the same name by Birmingham writer Keiran Goddard. The film follows five childhood friends, Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor, now in their thirties, as the lives they dreamed of begin to feel out of reach. Set in Birmingham and anchored in a working-class community navigating precarious jobs, a housing crisis and the weight of growing up, the film stars Anthony Boyle, Joe Cole, Jay Lycurgo, Daryl McCormack and Lola Petticrew.

The project began when screenwriter Enda Walsh sent Clio Barnard the novel. She loved it immediately, particularly the way author Keiran Goddard had woven political questions into five brilliantly drawn characters, and she didn’t want it to end. But adapting a book made of five internal monologues was far from simple. “I was intrigued to see how Enda would adapt it because it’s not an easy book to adapt. How do you externalize what’s going on for five people internally and how do you weave five stories together into a film?”. Walsh wrote the script quickly and made key inventions, the character of Marcus, a dog that didn’t exist in the novel , that cracked the structure open. Barnard knew right away he had done it.

To build the world of the film with the authenticity it demanded, Clio Barnard went to the community where Keiran Goddard had grown up. Through the writer and his brother Tom, she found the Crown, a pub that became the nerve centre of the entire production. “It’s a really fantastic community hub because the people who run it are wonderful and they embraced us with open arms”. The Crown served as casting base, rehearsal space, workshop venue for local residents and, eventually, the set itself: all the pub scenes were shot there. The network of people they met through it provided the extras, the locations and the fabric of the film.

Creating the bond between five characters who are supposed to have known each other since childhood was essential. Clio Barnard had one advantage: Lola Petticrew and Anthony Boyle had actually known each other since they were teenagers and even dated briefly. The rest of the cast understood from the start what was needed. “They were just such a fantastic lovely group of people who were very collaborative and understood that what we needed to do was create a bond and a familiarity and for us to completely believe that they had grown up together”.

The film centres on a specific and quietly devastating moment in life: the passage into your thirties, when the open horizon of youth starts to close in. Clio Barnard sees it as something both personal and political: “In your twenties it feels like anything is possible and in your thirties reality bites. There’s a false promise that is made to people, especially young people, about getting a job, getting a place to live. It’s almost impossible to find a secure roof over your head or a secure job. Things are very out of balance and we need to do something about it”.

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Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont returns to the Cannes competition for the second time with “Coward“, a queer romantic drama set during the First World War. After “Girl”, which won the Caméra d’Or in Un Certain Regard in 2018, and “Close“, Grand Prix winner in 2022, Lukas Dhont‘s third feature follows Pierre, a young soldier newly arrived at the Belgian front, and Francis, a flamboyant comrade who organises a theatre show to lift the spirits of the men around him. While violence rages, both find ways to escape the brutality of war, even if only for a moment. The film stars Emmanuel Macchia, in his screen debut, alongside Valentin Campagne. The film will be distributed by MUBI.

The film began with a series of black-and-white photographs Lukas Dhont stumbled upon four years ago. They showed young soldiers stationed in a waiting camp behind the front lines, performing a small theatre piece for each other using the tools of war: munition boxes turned into a podium, sandbags into skirts, bullets into jewellery. As a Belgian, Lukas Dhont grew up driving through the fields where the battle was fought, yet he had never been told about this phenomenon. “I was really confronted with the politics of memory, in the sense that there are certain images of violence and brutality that we have always pushed to the front and buried underneath them are these expressions of freedom“. The discovery sparked something deeper: a film about how, in the darkest of times, people have tried to stay human by creating or by looking for the creations of others.

One of the film’s central challenges was writing a love story in which the two protagonists could never be alone. Lukas Dhont drew inspiration from the poetry of the period, where queer desire lingers between the lines, and from the literature of writers like Jane Austen, where what cannot be said is expressed through micro-gestures. “I thought secrecy can also be incredibly sexy. Sharing a secret with someone, sharing a passion and a desire and having to experience that in public while you are the only two who know, that can be incredibly sensual“.

Behind the theatre and the love story lies a political dimension. Lukas Dhont discovered that Belgian soldiers who tried to desert were executed, imprisoned or forced to disappear into invisible lives, never able to return home. He found in those hidden existences a resonance with the queer experience of the time: people who had to live in camouflage and love hidden in plain sight. “For me the film is really about people who have resisted throughout time the codes of the world that they are brought up in“. The title itself carries that charge: in a genre where heroism is measured by the capacity to harm, Lukas Dhont reclaims the word coward as something closer to courage.

Before becoming a director, Lukas Dhont worked extensively in casting, and he describes it as his favourite part of the filmmaking process. For the role of Pierre, a farmer’s son, he visited agriculture schools across Belgium. Emmanuel Macchia was there, timid, barely using the full register of his voice. “When I got to know him more, I discovered he is an incredible cinephile because he was on “Letterboxd” giving reviews to “Cinema Paradiso”. And then I just discovered this soul that felt very timeless“. Lukas Dhont paired him with Valentin Campagne, his opposite: loud, performative, someone who takes up space. The combination worked because Campagne drew Emmanuel Macchia out, while Macchia grounded Campagne. When working with young people, Dhont says, he likes to cast those who resonate with the role, because he knows they will become co-authors of the part.

Lukas Dhont is open about his complicated relationship with war films, a genre he says has traditionally offered men a very limited space to exist, where value is measured by the ability to act heroic, which in that definition means the ability to harm or kill. “As a young man growing up and trying to look for mirrors, I always felt a sense of shame because I thought I would never really be capable of that. I always felt much more like a coward than I felt like a hero“. Among the few war films he admires, he cites Jean Renoir‘s “Grand Illusion”, for its insight that the idea of an enemy is a construction, and Stanley Kubrick‘s “Fear and Desire”, for its intelligence in depicting an undefined conflict, allowing the film to speak about war in general rather than a specific moment in time.

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Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner makes her Cannes debut with “Everytime“, her third feature, screening in Un Certain Regard at the 79th Festival de Cannes. After “The Impossible Picture” and “The Trouble With Being Born“, which won the Special Jury Award in the Berlinale’s Encounters section, Sandra Wollner turns her gaze to a Berlin family shattered by the death of a teenage daughter. A year after the tragedy, the girl’s mother Ella, played by Birgit Minichmayr, and her younger sister Melli set off for a holiday in Tenerife together with Lux, the boyfriend the whole world blames for the loss. Under a sun that refuses to set, past and present quietly begin to overlap.

The characters in “Everytime“, Sandra Wollner explains, did not come from a single source. They are after images of people she has met at different points in her life, figures that became ghosts. What interested her was not the immediate aftermath of tragedy but what comes later. “We don’t see the period where she probably couldn’t get out of bed or stop crying, but rather the time where she has to get out of bed, go on, and organize her life. She talks about what is for dinner with her younger daughter even though they are now at the graveyard and one person is missing“. Sandra Wollner was drawn to those banal scenes where absence is felt most acutely, moments she describes as tender and brutal at the same time.

There is a particular kind of grief the film captures: the instant when you wake up and forget, for a few seconds, that someone is gone. Sandra Wollner recognises that fleeting moment as something central to the experience. “You forget it for a split second and there is this tiny moment where it’s possible to call or get in contact with the person again because you have forgotten“.

The film’s most striking gesture, a sun that finally stops moving, has its roots in an earlier, unfinished project called “People in the Sun”, set in a world of perpetual daylight. That idea migrated into “Everytime” and found its meaning through a song: “The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis, which asks why the sun goes on shining when the pain is unbearable. “If you experience the biggest loss imaginable, like losing a child, the sun should have the decency to stand still. The world should not turn around anymore, but instead, the sun hangs there, obnoxious, naive, still shining as if nothing has changed, which is a tragedy in itself“.

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Presented at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, “Double Freedom (La libertad doble)” is Argentine director Lisandro Alonso‘s unexpected sequel to “La Libertad”, the 2001 debut that launched his career, also at Cannes. Twenty-five years later, the film reunites Lisandro Alonso with Misael Saavedra, the real-life woodcutter whose solitary existence in the Argentine pampa became the subject of that first film. This time, Misael’s quiet freedom is disrupted when he must care for his older sister, played by Chilean actress Catalina Saavedra. Produced by Planta, Deptford Film and Alonso’s own 4L, with international sales handled by Luxbox, the film is a co-production between Chile, Argentina, Luxembourg, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The impulse behind “Double Freedom” was, by Lisandro Alonso‘s own admission, a desire to return to the beginning. After the  multi-continent experience of “Eureka“, he wanted something lighter, closer to home. He immediately called Ilse Hughan, his longtime producer, who told him what Misael Saavedra was up to, and the idea of a sequel began to take shape. “I never made a sequel, or I never thought that I was going to make a sequel with the same character, same group of people, 25 years later. So I think it was a kind of risk and a good challenge for me“. The shoot took place on his father’s farm, with largely the same crew,  many of whom no longer work in cinema,  reassembled for the occasion.

What might have been a simple return became something more urgent. Lisandro Alonso wove his own family experiences into Misael Saavedra‘s fictional life, using the character as a vessel for a broader reflection on what happens to people without resources in a country where the social safety net is being dismantled. “He already had not a lot of sources when we started shooting the first film, and 25 years later he has still even less. So, you cannot pull the rope anymore. Something is going to break“. It is, Alonso says, probably the most political film he has ever made.

The title itself carries a playful ambiguity. Freedom, Lisandro Alonso notes, has become a loaded word in Argentina, heavily used by the current government in ways he finds questionable. “Double Freedom” doesn’t offer a neat definition. “It doesn’t have like a real meaning. But I thought it’s like if you go for whiskey and you ask for a double whiskey: it’s bigger, better, stronger, something like that“.

Asked about the relationship between cinema and politics, a debate that opened this year’s festival, Lisandro Alonso comments with a straightforward answer: “Every decision that you take, every frame that you decide to create, there’s some politics in it“.

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“Flesh and Fuel” (Du Fieul dans les Artères) by Pierre Le Gal is a captivating film about two truck drivers—one Polish and one French—whose professional lives mirror their personal struggles and desires. The narrative delves into how their contrasting motivations and attitudes towards work influence their relationship and self-perception. The portrayal of these characters offers a deep reflection on identity, freedom, and societal norms, making “Flesh and Fuel” a meaningful addition to contemporary cinematic storytelling.

We talked about these issues with on of the actors, Julian Świeżewski.

The film’s emphasis on “Flesh and Fuel” extends beyond its title, representing the core elements that drive the characters’ lives: their physical passions and emotional energies. The movie skillfully depicts love scenes that are honest and free of voyeurism, emphasizing intimacy and connection over spectacle. “Flesh and Fuel” serve as a metaphor for how personal emotions fuel our existence, especially in environments where societal expectations—like the macho truck driver stereotype—often overshadow genuine expressions of love and identity. This authentic portrayal invites viewers to reflect on the importance of embracing all facets of oneself, regardless of external pressures. The movie uniquely examines how external pressures and internal passions intertwine, highlighting the importance of embracing one’s true self amidst societal expectations.

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“Nostalgia for the Future” starts from the archives of Chris Marker, pivotal figure in modern filmmaking, that are partially disclosed. The director Brecth Debackere talks with us about his approach to that material and the way he decided to tell the story of Chris Marker from his archives, not in a classic way, for sure.

The phrase “Nostalgia for the Future” captures a compelling tension between longing for what has been and hopeful anticipation of what is yet to come. Modern filmmakers invoke this concept by referencing historical archives and personal histories while simultaneously questioning the direction of future society. Such films serve as reflections, urging audiences to consider how past and future continuously shape our present experiences. This theme has become increasingly relevant in a world where rapid technological change prompts us to revisit memories while dreaming ahead.

A key aspect of “Nostalgia for the Future” involves the creative use of archives and historical materials. Brecth Debackere often incorporates vintage footage, personal letters, and photographs to construct layered narratives that challenge traditional storytelling. By doing so, he offers viewers a chance to revisit bygone eras while contemplating what lies ahead. The process of working with archival content highlights the fluidity of memory and underscores the idea that our identities are shaped by both history and forward-looking aspirations.

Combining visual archives with voices and writings of thinkers like Chris Marker, Brecth Debackere invites audiences to explore the complex layers of human experience. This approach underscores the notion that understanding oneself involves a continuous dialogue between what has been and what could be. It reminds us that our relationship with time is multifaceted, blending a fondness for the past with an optimistic gaze toward the horizon. As filmmakers continue to experiment with archival materials and philosophical insights, they invite us all to reflect on how we shape and are shaped by the interplay of memory and aspiration.

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