National Film And Television School Alumni Take Cannes Film Festival 2026!
The 79th Festival de Cannes has wrapped! Over the past 12 days, National Film and Television School (NFTS) alumni from over the years have had their work celebrated across La Cinef, Official Selection, Un Certain Regard and independent sidebars including Directors’ Fortnight and Diversity in Cannes.
Almost 30 members of the cast and crew from animation Pickled and fiction short Left Behind, Still Standing, were in Cannes for the international premieres of their student films as part of the La Cinef selections. Some team members were returning to Cannes for the second year in a row, following the landmark selection of their NFTS first-year film Ether in 2025.
“It was a dream come true, something you can’t imagine happening”
Fanny Capu, Pickled director
Pickled team in Cannes
Maria Martinez Bayona’s writing-directing feature debut The End of It, a film with a star-studded cast (Rebecca Hall, Gael García Bernal, Noomi Rapace) in which a 250-year-old artist decides she’s had enough of life, had its Cannes Premiere on 21 May and was produced by fellow alumni Kamilla Hodol and Emilie Jouffroy.
“If you ask me what genre I prefer, I prefer films. The ones where you feel that somebody specific is telling you the story.”
Maria Martinez Bayona
The Titanic Ocean photocall turned heads with cast member Arisa Sasaki arriving in full costume complete with violet mermaid tail. The Japan-set coming-of-age drama was exec-produced by Emily Morgan and premiered in Un Certain Regard.
Alongside this was, feminist gothic horror Victorian Psycho, co-produced by Marie-Elena Dyche. The film, starring Maika Monroe as an eccentric governess whose arrival at a 19th-century estate triggers a sequence of mysterious and chaotic events, received a seven-minute standing ovation following its premiere.
Left Behind, Still Standing team together for their Cannes Premiere
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, written and directed by Clio Barnard won the Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice Award (Audience Award). Edited by Maya Maffioli, the film is an adaptation of a novel by Keiran Goddard about a group of thirty-year-olds who find the lives they imagined when they were skipping school as childhood friends have not turned out the way they hoped for. This marks Clio Barnard’s third time in Directors’ Fortnight after showing Ava & Ali and The Selfish Giant in the section. Additional alumni who worked on the film include sound designer Paul Davies, sound effects editor Siim Skepast, rerecording mix technician Itzel Gonzalez Estrada, and 2nd assistant sound Carys Ellis.
In other Directors' Fortnight prizes, Too Many Beasts, co-written by Jérémie Duboison, won the Europa Cinemas Label award - an accolade handed out by a jury of exhibitors to what they consider to be the best European film in the parallel section. The film follows Fulda, a disgraced Corsican cop transferred to France’s Northeast where a war between farmers and hunters is spiralling out of control.
Additionally in the selection was animation Daughters of the Late Colonel by acclaimed director and NFTS Senior Tutor Elizabeth Hobbs. Inspired by Elizabeth’s own personal story, the film follows two middle-aged sisters who find themselves at a loss after the death of their ill-tempered and controlling father.
Last but by no means least, NFTS student-made Dance of the Spirits won Best Student Film at Diversity in Cannes. The team remarked, “Diversity in Cannes is such a deeply inspiring and essential festival for storytellers. To have our work celebrated among so many impactful voices is a profound honour for all of us”.
It wasn’t just production and craft alumni representing the NFTS at Cannes!
Second-year Business student Katrin Tepova attended the festival on a work placement with Beta Cinema, a leading German international sales agent with a strong European slate. Katrin gained incredible experience, working directly within the market, sitting in on buyer meetings, supporting the sales team across acquisitions and pitching, and getting a real inside view of how international film distribution works at the highest level.
“By my fourth day I had closed my first deal, which is something I genuinely don’t think would have been possible without the negotiation knowledge and industry grounding that the Creative Business course has given me. Being on the ground at Cannes and being trusted to operate at that level so quickly was a real confidence builder.”
Katrin Tepova at Cannes with Beta Cinema
Fellow Business alumnus Mark Mullan was in Cannes representing his production company, Mullan Film, and meeting international co-production and distribution partners around his feature documentary project Unbreakable, which is currently in development with support from Screen Ireland.
The film is an observational documentary following the staff and patients at an orthopaedic-rehabilitation hospital in Kharkiv, Ukraine, during the ongoing war. Attached to the project are director Benjamin Kodboel and cinematographer Tom Simington, both NFTS graduates, alongside acclaimed Irish editor John Murphy.
A number of Marketing, Distribution, Sales and Exhibition alumni flew out to represent their companies and support activities at the festival including Simon Galvan, Worldwide Acquisitions team at Amazon MGM, Clare Harris, Head of Marketing and Rani Stoeckli, Sales and Marketing Executive, Embankment Films, Ahmed Bakhsh, Content and Digital Marketing Director, Red Sea International Film Festival, Angelica Ramirez, International Sales Manager, Bankside Films, James Cannon, Investment Associate, Head Gear and Julia Trawinska, Acquisitions Manager, Curzon.
The National Film and Television School is so proud of all our alumni who attended the Cannes Film Festival this year and would like to give a huge congratulations to the teams behind selected and award-winning productions.
- Check out the full teams for NFTS student-made films at Cannes!
Pickled
Director/Animator/Puppetmaker Fanny Capu
Producer Dóra Gálosi
Story by Fanny Capu, Chanse Campbell
Written by Silas Thomas
Cinematographer Hayley Grant
Production Designer Rosie Crisp
Production Managers Emitayo Awofala, Sam Buckler
Production Coordinators Georgie Craddock, Artur Polescuks
Coordinating Model Maker Chloe Rushbrook
Modelmakers (Key Props) Alfie Strudwick, Beatrice Babbo, Cristian Ciumac, Lizzy Kelsey, Emma Tanner, Isabel Carpenter, Maddie Stringer, Rahab McQueen, Rita Castelo Branco, Robby Baldwin, Yaxxy Wong
Editor/Online Editor Maria Luiza Munhoz
Sound Designer/Dubbing Mixer Fran Christie Burke
Composer Dominic Carrington
VFX Supervisor Michael Crookes
Colourist Guy ChackarovLeft Behind, Still Standing
Director Vida Skerk
Producer Dóra Gálosi
Screenwriters Vida Skerk, Tommy Hurst
Cinematographer Kaysar Kasim
1st AC Vittoria Maiolo
2nd AC Harrison Griffiths
2nd Unit Assistant Camera Amber Taylor
Set Photographer Kato Boels
Production Designer Maria Coogans
Production Manager Bailey Hamilton
Production Coordinator Daniyela James
1st Assistant Director Jonas Ackermann
2nd Assistant Director Jess Lawley
3rd Assistant Director Gabriella Steel
Office Production Assistants Shreya Desai, Elliot Stewart Flemming
Production Sound Mixer David John Crouch
1st Assistant Sound Adam Burkholder
Recording Engineer Jackson Seib
Editor Rafael Luis Fernando
Sound Designer Vicente Molder
Composer Dominic Carrington
Sound Effects Editor Mingxi Xu
Foley Artist Felix Donovan
Colourist Nidhi Kullu, Ellen Yu
Online Editor Rafael Luis Fernando
Additional VFX Thompson Okuku
Title and Credit Design Xanthe BodingtonDance of the Spirits
Director/Animator - Andreea-Lorena Florea
Producer - Claud Cunningham
Screenwriter - Alfie Kelly
Cinematographer - Catharina Scarpellini
Production Managers - Jeanet Froidurot, Chrystal Holder
Sound Recordist - Jacob Stone
Editor - Karin Raksanugraha
Sound Designer/Dubbing Mixer - Jacob Stone
Composer - Katrina Rose
Colourist - Nidhi Kullu