The Festival de Cannes has initiated several programs to support and promote young filmmakers. Every year, the screenwriting residency created in 2000 welcomes twelve new filmmakers working on their first or second feature-length fiction film. Over the course of two four-and-a-half-month sessions, they receive guidance to write their screenplays and move on to production.
Winner of the Grand Prix at the last Festival de Cannes for her film All We Imagine as Light, which she wrote during the 2019 Residence, Indian director Payal Kapadia reminisces: “The script for All We Imagine as Light was still very fragile when I applied to La Résidence. Having the time and resources to write it in the company of other wonderful screenwriters and directors offered me the ideal work environment. It also gave me the opportunity to collaborate closely with my French producers, knowing that co-productions are complicated when we live far apart. Coming from India, a country where there’s a real lack of distribution for independent films, being in Paris was also a real pleasure as a cinephile! I wish I could do it all again.”
Praised by critics, All We Imagine as Light was released in France on October 2nd.
The six new filmmakers in residence at the Festival
Since its creation in 2000, the Résidence du Festival de Cannes has welcomed more than 250 filmmakers from some 60 countries, providing a springboard for many film directors who have gone on to international success. Past residents include Lucrecia Martel, Kornél Mundruczó, Sebastián Lelio and Jonas Carpignano, all of whom have won awards from major film festivals around the world.
Following their Résidence, several directors have gone on to win prestigious awards. Romania’s Corneliu Porumboiu won the Caméra d’Or in 2006 with 12:08 East of Bucharest. Mexico’s Amat Escalante, in Official Selection in Cannes in 2023 with Lost in the Night (Perdidos en la noche), had already won Best Director Award in 2013 for Heli. His compatriot Michel Franco won the Un Certain Regard award in 2012 for After Lucia (Después de Lucía) and Best Screenplay for Chronic in 2015 in Cannes. Hungary’s László Nemes won the Grand Prix in Cannes that same year, and the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Son of Saul in 2016.
Other successes include Belgium’s Lukas Dhont, Caméra d’Or in 2018 for Girl, and Lebanon’s Nadine Labaki, who won the Prix du Jury at the Festival de Cannes for Capharnaüm the same year and was also nominated for the César and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2019. Israel’s Nadav Lapid won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2019 for Synonyms and the Prix du Jury for Ahed’s Knee in Cannes in 2021. The same year, Croatia’s Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović won the Camera d’Or for Murina.
The 2022 Golden Bear went to Spanish filmmaker and former resident Carla Simón for Alcarràs. Brazil’s Karim Aïnouz, one of the Résidence’s first participants, was selected for the Palme d’Or two years running with Firebrand in 2023 and Motel Destino in 2024. Zambia-born Rungano Nyoni won the Best Director Award from Un Certain Regard in 2024 for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. That same year, India’s Payal Kapadia and Singapore’s Chiang Wei Liang respectively won the Grand Prix and a Caméra d’Or mention spéciale (special award) for the films they wrote during their Résidence in 2019-2020.
