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Tuesday, May 12, at the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière, the Festival de Cannes opened its 79th edition with Eye Haïdara as master of ceremonies. According to Le Monde, the actress saluted “those who try to resist here and elsewhere.” The phrase, for which no complete official transcript yet exists, was enough to shift the center of an otherwise very codified evening. Less glamorous than expected, the opening gave cinema a distinctly more public dimension.
A Voice Rather Than Just An Opening Face
In Cannes, an opening ceremony follows a well-established protocol. It sets the tone for an edition, establishes a rhythm, distributes the first symbols. The steps produce images. The auditorium creates a hierarchy. And the stage reminds that the Festival first presents itself as the world capital of cinema. Usually, the machine is so well-oiled that it absorbs almost everything. Tuesday night, it let something else through.
The Festival announced on March 25 that Eye Haidara would succeed Laurent Laffitte as master of ceremonies for this 79th edition, organized from May 12 to 23, 2026. The information might have seemed purely institutional. It was not entirely. In Cannes, choosing who opens and closes the Festival determines a rhythm and a bearing. That decision influences how to address the auditorium, the professionals, and the wider public watching from afar.
The choice of Eye Haidara already announced an original sequence. The Festival highlighted an actress who moved between theater and film, capable of authority without stiffness, momentum without grandstanding. That profile mattered. It mattered less to make a name shine than to find a presence able to hold both the pageantry and the speech together.
According to the report published by Le Monde, that is what happened. Eye Haïdara reportedly did not limit herself to occupying the role. She worked it. The paper reports that she spoke to viewers and internet users. She mentioned places where the internet had been cut. Then she mentioned those where artificial intelligence would replace the real. Finally, she saluted “those who try to resist here and elsewhere.” In the absence of an isolated video or a complete verbatim published by the Festival, these elements must be attributed to the evening paper. They nevertheless sketch a tone.
In this sequence, as reported, what strikes is not only the presence of the word “resist.” It is its use. Nothing in the available sources indicates that Eye Haïdara intended to turn the ceremony into a geopolitical platform. The term appears to be used in a broader, more cultural sense. Still according to Le Monde, she recalled that a South Korean film can move a Brazilian viewer. Moreover, she emphasized that an Iranian fable can penetrate the wall of indifference. Resistance here therefore does not denote a slogan imposed on the evening. It refers to the possibility for films to circulate from one world to another and to wrench attention away from habit.
The shift is discreet but real. In a Cannes opening, cinema is often celebrated in very general terms. It is readily ascribed a universal mission, at the risk of abstraction. Eye Haïdara, as Le Monde reports her, gives it instead a more concrete function. Works travel, undo indifference, connect audiences who do not know each other, and oppose the closing of the world with an experience of passage. Said like that, the remark remains measured. It is nonetheless political, in the clearest sense of the term.
A Ceremony That Also Talks About The Festival Of Cannes Itself
This reading, however, only makes sense placed within the composition of the evening. Cannes never innocently juxtaposes its sequences. The Festival arranges its tributes, presences, and announcements to tell something about itself. The 2026 opening did not escape that logic.
According to Le Monde, Peter Jackson received a Palme d’honneur for his entire career. Jackson does not embody either the sole auteur cinema celebrated by the Croisette or a mere spectacular side opposed to the rest. His filmography evokes both industrial excess and technical know-how. Moreover, it shows a sense of craft and a rare ability to inscribe popular imaginations into a lasting cinematic memory. Honoring him during an opening traversed by a reflection on the circulation of works is not insignificant.
One would be wrong, however, to see too univocal a message in that. Cannes is not suddenly converting to global spectacle. It rather reminds that it also knows how to consecrate cinemas that have shifted the boundary between artistic prestige and popular success. In this evening, Peter Jackson does not appear as a concession. He functions as an additional sign of the breadth the Festival intends to give to its own definition of cinema.
The end of the ceremony, again according to Le Monde, extended this play of resonances with interventions by Gong Li and Jane Fonda. The detail is not only ceremonial. Gong Li reportedly insisted on the meeting of East and West. Jane Fonda reportedly spoke of cinema as an “act of resistance.” Again, the phrase could seem expected in a major international gala. What makes it more interesting is its insertion in a whole already prepared by Eye Haïdara’s words. From one voice to another, the evening circulated the same intuition without hammering it.
That is likely where the opening found its right note. Cannes is a prestige machine. The Festival lives off its protocol, its photogenic quality, its ability to transform each sequence into a global emblem. But it is precisely for that reason that any tonal inflection stands out more. When such a stage lets in the anxieties of the time and the memory of the world’s fractures, it is more visible. Furthermore, one better perceives the idea that a film can still act on those who watch it.
When The Opening Film Takes Over
After the speeches and tributes, the evening was to continue with Pierre Salvadori’s La Vénus électrique. The Festival had confirmed it in its April 1 press release, specifying that the film would be screened in a world premiere. Afterwards, it would be shown simultaneously in French theaters at the Grand Théâtre Lumière. This detail, seemingly practical, deserves attention. It also says something about the edition.
Cannes remains a place of selection, therefore of distinction. Nothing there is conceived against the idea of hierarchy. But the simultaneous distribution of the opening film reminds that a major ceremony can no longer justify itself solely by its insularity. It must also give the impression that something comes out of the Palais and goes beyond the badges. Thus, it reaches an audience not physically present. The evening of May 12 fit this logic of outreach.
The choice of Pierre Salvadori fits the same movement. His cinema never sought majesty for its own sake. It favors off-kilter moves, shifts in situation, moments of grace born of a sidestep. Opening Cannes with La Vénus électrique after a ceremony where, according to Le Monde, those who resist were mentioned, does not amount to artificially politicizing the film. It rather suggests that a festival can defend a serious vision of the world without renouncing style, humor, or fiction.
In this sequence, two usual pitfalls were avoided. The first is turning the opening into a fleeting manifesto instantly dissolved in media noise. The second is neutralizing any speech in the name of celebrating cinema alone. Tuesday night, Eye Haïdara seemed to hold a rarer line. Neither a decorative figurehead nor a makeshift orator, she gave the role of master of ceremonies a bit more density than usually expected.
At bottom, perhaps that is what will be remembered from this opening. Not an isolated quip, still less a rupture gesture. Rather a subtler adjustment. For a few minutes, Cannes did not content itself with launching its edition. The Festival suggested, through the voice of Eye Haïdara and in the very composition of the evening, that a film can still be more than a cultural product or a mere token of prestige. It can remain a place of passage, memory, and attention to the world.
