Arab cinema once again has a strong presence at the Cannes Film Festival, with selections across both the main sections and parallel categories in the 2026 event.
This year's line-up includes features by Moroccan, Palestinian and Yemeni directors, as well as shorts from Tunisia, Syria, Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco and Sudan. Egyptian-French filmmaker Arthur Harari is also in main competition with The Unknown.
Here are the Arab films to look out for at the Cannes Film Festival 2026.
Strawberries
Director: Laila Marrakchi
Section: Un Certain Regard
Country: Morocco / France / Spain / Belgium
Moroccan director Laila Marrakchi returns to Cannes with La Mas Dulce (Strawberries), screening in Un Certain Regard.
The film follows two young Moroccan women who travel to southern Spain to work as seasonal strawberry pickers. Hoping to earn money for their families, they soon face abuse, harassment and harsh working conditions.
Marrakchi previously screened Marock in Un Certain Regard in 2005.
The Unknown
Director: Arthur Harari
Section: Competition
Country: France / Italy
Arthur Harari is in Competition with The Unknown. The Egyptian-French filmmaker won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall, which debuted in Cannes’s main competition in 2023.
His new film, listed by Cannes under the French title L’Inconnue, follows a photographer who wakes up in the body of an unknown woman after following her at a party.
Harari previously directed Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle, which screened in Un Certain Regard in 2021.
Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep
Director: Rakan Mayasi
Section: Un Certain Regard
Country: Palestine / Lebanon / Belgium / Qatar / Saudi Arabia
Palestinian filmmaker Rakan Mayasi makes his feature debut with Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep, also selected for Un Certain Regard.
The film is set in a Bedouin village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border, where the disappearance of a young woman draws the community into family tensions, old grudges and the threat of revenge.
Mayasi has previously directed short films including Bonbone and Trumpets in the Sky.
TJ28 (28 Days Left)
Director: Yasmin Najjar
Section: La Cinef
School: Aalto University, Finland
Palestinian director Yasmin Najjar is selected for La Cinef with TJ28 (28 Days Left).
The 24-minute film was made through Aalto University in Finland. La Cinef is Cannes’s section dedicated to films from cinema schools around the world.
Somewhere I Belong
Director: Youssef Handouse
Section: La Cinef
School: Isamm, Tunisia
Tunisian filmmaker Youssef Handouse appears in La Cinef with Somewhere I Belong.
The 21-minute film was made at Isamm in Tunisia, one of the schools represented in this year’s La Cinef selection.
The Station
Director: Sara Ishaq
Section: Critics’ Week – Feature Film Competition
Country: Yemen / Jordan / France / Germany / Netherlands / Norway / Qatar
Yemeni director Sara Ishaq screens The Station / Al Mahattah in the Critics’ Week feature competition.
The film centres on Layal, who runs a women-only petrol station in Yemen. The station has become a refuge in a country shaped by war, but her life is disrupted when her estranged sister returns and their younger brother faces enlistment.
Ishaq’s short documentary Karama Has No Walls, about Yemen’s 2011 uprising, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2014.
Nafron
Director: Daood Alabdulaa
Section: Critics’ Week – Short Film Competition
Country: Syria / Germany
Syrian director Daood Alabdulaa is in the Critics’ Week short-film competition with Nafron.
The 14-minute film follows a middle-aged woman wandering through war-torn Damascus after the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s government. She has lost her memory and moves through a city still marked by violence.
The Sentinel
Director: Ali Cherri
Section: Critics’ Week – Special Screening
Country: Lebanon / France
Lebanese artist and filmmaker Ali Cherri screens The Sentinel as a Critics’ Week special screening.
The 29-minute film, in French and Arabic, follows a sergeant who is given one night of freedom on Bastille Day.
Cherri’s previous feature, The Dam, premiered in Directors’ Fortnight in 2022.
What Do the Maknines Dream Of
Director: Sarra Ryma
Section: Critics’ Week – Short Film Competition
Country: Algeria / France
Algerian filmmaker Sarra Ryma is selected for the Critics’ Week short-film competition with What Do the Maknines Dream Of.
The film, whose French title is A quoi revent les Maknines, follows two young Algerians preparing to leave everything behind and cross the Mediterranean.
In Search of the Grey Bird with Green Stripes
Director: Said Hamich Benlarbi
Section: Directors’ Fortnight
Country: Morocco / France
Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Said Hamich Benlarbi appears in Directors’ Fortnight with In Search of the Grey Bird with Green Stripes.
The 45-minute film follows Sellam as he travels through the Atlas Mountains south of Marrakesh in pursuit of a mysterious bird.
Hamich Benlarbi previously directed Return to Bollene and Across the Sea.
Nothing Happens After Your Absence
Director: Ibrahim Omar
Section: Directors’ Fortnight
Country: Sudan
Sudanese filmmaker Ibrahim Omar is selected for Directors’ Fortnight with Nothing Happens After Your Absence.
The 16-minute film follows Ibrahim as he returns to a village to screen films, only for war to break out in Sudan.
