For three decades now,Acid has been programming a parallel section at the Cannes Film Festival , highlightingcinematographies other than the official selections - screened in competition at the Palais des Festivals, the Quinzaine des Cinéastes and the Semaine de la Critique - and unveiling even sassier, stranger and more astonishing works.
A true laboratory for bold films, ACID stands out as the only Cannes section whose selections are made by filmmakers themselves. Once again this year, roughly a dozen filmmaker-programmers spent months screening hundreds of titles before narrowing it down to about ten. That’s where the name comes from, an acronym for 'Association of Independent Cinema for Its Diffusion'.
Drumroll, please: the Acid selection for the Cannes Film Festival 2026 has just been unveiled, and as usual it gives special attention to titles without a French distributor. Of the 9 films selected, 6 are debut feature-length titles.
The programming this year mirrors both the unsettling fever of our times and our boundless capacity to face it head-on. It asks us to question our institutions, to grasp the feeling of exile, to rethink our relationship with the places we inhabit and with the beings who surround us; to chase universal appeal, to die in order to reinvent ourselves, and to let a camera reveal who we truly are to the world we once imagined. Whether through humor, fiction, or a keen eye for detail, these films lay bare the dysfunctions threading through our societies and their impact on each of us. The works on offer are acts of gathering, stories rooted in a poetic, joyful, unexpected yet always free and unruly reality. They stand as potent gestures of resistance — and of hope. précise le comité de sélection de l'Acid.
The poster for this 34th edition of Acid, slated to run from May 13 to 22, has this year been created by illustrator Gaetan Sahsah (aka "Azaazelus").
ACID Cannes is an open bubble for everyone at the heart of Cannes: no screening, no red carpet. Just cinema. To translate this idea visually, I chose the house, a universal refuge, built from bricks and blocks, inhabited in a thousand different ways. A house that is invented as we go, like this festival that reinvents itself every year on the margins of the big show. — the artist explains.
A year rich in discoveries!
Dates and Opening Time
From May 13, 2026 to May 22, 2026
Official website
www.lacid.org
