Guillermo del Toro screens Pan’s Labyrinth at Cannes opening

Guillermo del Toro came back to Cannes with one of the movies most closely tied to his name — and he used the moment to remind people that great films do not arrive gently. At a May 12 pre-opening Cannes Classics screening, the festival showed a new 4K restoration of *Pan’s Labyrinth*, 20 years after its original Cannes premiere. Then del Toro got onstage and said making it was “the second worst filmmaking experience” of his life. The line landed because *Pan’s Labyrinth* now looks untouchable — but the movie was anything but easy to get made. ### What actually happened at Cannes? This was not a random repertory screening. Cannes Classics opened its 2026 lineup with *Pan’s Labyrinth* as a pre-opening event on Tuesday, May 12, in the Debussy Theater, with del Toro there in person. The film returned in a 4K restoration that he personally supervised from the original 35mm negative, which turns the screening into both a nostalgia play and a prestige restoration launch. (festival-cannes.com) ### Why was that quote the headline? Because del Toro did not just bask in applause. He talked about how brutal the process was. He said *Pan’s Labyrinth* was the second worst shoot of his life, with *Mimic* still holding first place. That matters because it punctures the usual myth that beloved art comes out of some pure, enchanted creative flow. In his telling, this one came out of resistance, financing trouble, and a lot of pain. (festival-cannes.com) ### Why compare it to *Mimic*? If you know del Toro’s career, that comparison is a flare. He has talked for years about *Mimic* as a miserable studio experience, especially because of interference around the cut and the production. So when he ranks *Pan’s Labyrinth* just behind it, he is saying the movie now treated as a modern fantasy classic was also forged under extreme pressure — just in a different way. (variety.com) ### What made *Pan’s Labyrinth* so hard? The hard part seems to have started before cameras rolled. Del Toro said the film was very difficult in pre-production and that nobody wanted to finance it. That tracks with what the movie was in 2006 — a dark Spanish-language fairy tale set under Franco, violent, sad, and impossible to pitch as clean commercial fantasy. Basically, it was the kind of film executives praise after it wins, not before it exists. (sensacine.com.mx) ### Why bring it back now? Because Cannes loves a legend it helped create. *Pan’s Labyrinth* premiered there in 2006 and the festival is still framing that debut as historic — especially the 22-minute standing ovation, which remains the longest in Cannes history. Bringing it back as a restored pre-opening screening lets Cannes celebrate its own canon while also giving del Toro a stage to reconnect the movie’s reputation with the labor behind it. (sensacine.com.mx) ### Was there a bigger point in what he said? Yes — and it went beyond one film. During the Cannes appearance, del Toro also blasted the idea that art can be made with “a f—king app.” That comment and the production anecdote are really the same argument. Art, in his view, comes from taste, struggle, craft, and human judgment. The restoration screening gave him a perfect example: a film that looks magical on screen but was built the hard way. (variety.com) ### Why does this matter outside Cannes? Because anniversaries usually sand off the rough edges. They turn movies into monuments. Del Toro did the opposite. He used a victory-lap screening to talk about failure, pain, and how close important work can come to not existing at all. That makes the Cannes moment feel less like museum programming and more like a live argument for why difficult, personal filmmaking still matters. (variety.com) ### Bottom line The news is simple — Cannes reopened one of its modern classics, and del Toro refused to romanticize it. That is why the moment stuck. He was not just celebrating *Pan’s Labyrinth*. He was defending the messy, human process that made it possible. (variety.com)