Cannes Winner La Gradiva Sets December U.S. Release — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- La Gradiva won the top prize at Cannes Critics' Week 2026, becoming one of the year's most acclaimed festival discoveries.
- "La Gradiva" narrowly missed out on representing France in the Best International Feature Oscar race; that honor went instead to Russian-language film "Minotaur," a multinational production that won the Grand Prize in the Cannes competition.
- Marine Atlan directs, co-writes with Anne Brouillet, and serves as her own director of photography on her feature debut, replacing a typical DP role she previously held.
- 1-2 Special will release "La Gradiva" in select U.S. theaters on December 18, following its New York Film Festival premiere beginning Sunday, September 27.
- The film's path echoes 2025's "All We Imagine as Light," a festival darling that similarly missed the international Oscar slot — India snubbed it, and France was among countries that could've picked it up but didn't.
- IndieWire's review calls the teenagers "fully realized people" and says Atlan and Brouillet reach "toward the sublime," with the film exploring "the layers below our consciousness" alongside the fading of youth.
- 1-2 Special also distributes Germany's Oscar entry "Everytime," directed by Sandra Wöllner, which received similarly immense praise at Cannes.
Why it matters: With 1-2 Special now controlling both a Cannes Critics' Week winner and Germany's international Oscar submission, the distributor emerges as a serious awards-season player on both sides of the Atlantic. Atlan becoming her own cinematographer signals the kind of auteur control that draws critics' prizes, and the "All We Imagine as Light" parallel suggests another international Oscar snub despite widespread festival love.
Ask SkimNews
