My 5 Most Expected Latin American Films from Cannes 2026

The 5 Latin American Films I Most Want to Watch from Cannes Film Festival 2026

Latin American cinema continues to have a complicated relationship with Cannes. In recent years, representation from the region in the Official Competition has been limited, with Brazilian productions such as Motel Destino and The Secret Agent becoming rare exceptions. The last Spanish-language Latin American film to compete for the Palme d’Or before that was Heli by Amat Escalante in 2013. Because of this, I always pay special attention to the films from Latin America appearing across sections like Un Certain Regard, Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight, where many of the most interesting voices from the region are currently emerging.

Last year, two Latin American films from Un Certain Regard ended up winning the section’s major awards. One of them was La Misteriosa Mirada del Flamenco, which won the top prize. The film mixed fantasy and reality through the story of a strange illness affecting men who look at trans women. Beyond its performances and surreal atmosphere, what stayed with me most was its portrayal of trans identity within a Latin American family and social environment. The film approached the subject with emotional complexity rather than reducing it to suffering or stereotypes.

The other major winner was El Poeta, one of my favorite films of last year. The story follows a frustrated poet obsessed with creating meaningful art who develops a friendship with a younger student possessing natural talent for poetry. What fascinated me most was the film’s reflection on artistic ambition in Latin America, the relationship between South America and European cultural validation, and the balance it maintained between absurd humor and emotional sincerity. It remains one of the sharpest screenplays I watched last year and deserved far more international attention.

This year, nine Latin American productions appeared across the different sections of Cannes. These are the five I am most looking forward to watching.

After Chile 1976, Chilean director Manuela Martelli returns to Cannes with a story set in Chile during 1992, only a few years after the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship. The film follows a young girl who befriends a German teenage skier who suddenly disappears near the Andes mountains. Family tensions over land ownership and hidden local secrets slowly emerge throughout the search.

What attracts me most about the film is its historical atmosphere. Latin American cinema often explores dictatorship through direct political trauma, but El Deshielo seems more interested in the emotional aftermath left behind once a country attempts to rebuild itself. Combined with the natural setting of the Andes and the strong critical reactions coming from Cannes, it became one of my most anticipated films from the festival.

Premiering in Directors’ Fortnight, La Perra follows an isolated woman living on a Chilean island who works harvesting seaweed and adopts a puppy that awakens emotional wounds and frustrated maternal desires.

What interests me most is the possibility of seeing motherhood explored through a more intimate and uncomfortable perspective. In many Latin American societies, especially conservative ones, women continue to experience enormous social pressure surrounding motherhood and family expectations. Reaching a certain age without children often becomes treated almost like a personal failure. Because of that, I am curious about how the film approaches loneliness, femininity and emotional frustration within such an isolated environment. The fact that the film also won the Palm Dog at Cannes only increased the attention surrounding it.

Normally, a football documentary would not immediately attract my attention, since I am not particularly interested in sports cinema. However, El Partido focuses on one of the most emotionally and politically significant football matches in Latin American history: Argentina versus England during the 1986 World Cup, only a few years after the Falklands/Malvinas War.

In Latin America, football frequently carries meanings that go far beyond sport itself. Victories become tied to national pride, political frustration and collective identity. In the context of Argentina after the war, the match transformed into something symbolic for an entire country still dealing with humiliation, loss and nationalism. The added presence of Maradona at the centre of this historical moment makes the documentary even more fascinating to me.

Another Latin American title presented in Un Certain Regard, Siempre soy tu animal materno ended up becoming the only film from the region awarded in the section, with its actresses Daniela Marín Navarro, Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas sharing the acting prize.

Set in Costa Rica, the story follows a woman returning home after living in Europe and confronting the emotional distance that now exists between herself, her family and the town she left behind. As someone who also migrated to Europe, this premise immediately resonated with me. Migration changes relationships in subtle but painful ways: conversations feel different, expectations change and people begin imagining different futures for themselves. According to reactions from Cannes, the strongest aspect of the film lies in the confrontations and conversations between the protagonist, her mother and her sister, something that makes me even more interested in watching it.

Premiering in Directors’ Fortnight, the film follows a woman returning to Venezuela in order to reclaim an inheritance connected to a cacao plantation. Critics described the project as a blend of horror cinema and anti-colonial commentary, immediately making it one of the most intriguing Latin American genre films from Cannes this year.

What interests me most is how the film connects colonial history with contemporary Venezuela, a country still marked by political instability, migration and economic crisis. Even more interesting is the fact that the production reportedly did not receive Venezuelan state financing, reflecting the difficulties filmmakers from the country continue to face. Despite those challenges, Venezuelan cinema continues finding ways to exist and evolve internationally, something that makes me especially curious to see how La Muerte no Tiene Dueño approaches horror not only as genre entertainment, but also as political and historical metaphor.