Cannes Correspondences #3: Second Lives

A personal essay from Cannes Film Festival 2026 reflecting on cinema’s evolution across two decades. The author revisits their first attendance in 2006, when they pursued screenings as an enthusiast outside the official circuit, encountering works by Kaurismäki, Cronenberg, and Kelly’s divisive Southland Tales. The piece meditates on festival culture, critical consensus-building, and the passing of auteur figures including Godard, Kiarostami, and Lynch, whose absence shapes contemporary programming. As Cannes approaches its 80th anniversary, the writer grapples with nostalgia for cinema’s perceived golden era while questioning whether retrospective canonization genuinely honors departed masters or merely indulges nostalgic fandom. The essay examines taste formation in festival contexts and how critical hierarchies shift across time and perspective.

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