Cannes: Immersive Competition

The Festival de Cannes has set its 2026 Immersive Competition with nine works that will be shown from May 14 to May 23 at the Carlton Hotel. (festival-cannes.com) Cannes said the selection spans nine countries and mixes virtual reality, mixed reality and location-based installations, a format that places viewers inside the story rather than in front of a screen. (festival-cannes.com) The 2026 competition includes “The Exploding Girl VR” by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, with Adèle Exarchopoulos in the cast, and “The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters,” voiced by Lucy Liu. (festival-cannes.com) (deadline.com) Other selected works include “Beyond the Vivid Unknown,” “In the Current of Being,” “Lacuna,” “The Dollhouse,” “From Dust,” “Murmuration,” and “Sweet!” according to the festival’s official lineup. (festival-cannes.com) Cannes created the Immersive Competition in 2024, giving virtual reality and installation-based storytelling a formal place inside the festival after years of one-off experiments with extended reality projects. (festival-cannes.com 1) (festival-cannes.com 2) The setup also pulls Cannes closer to the business of games, real-time graphics and museum-style exhibitions, because many of these works are built for headsets, tracked spaces or multiroom installations instead of conventional theaters. (festival-cannes.com) (deadline.com) “The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters” comes from Singer Studios, and Deadline reported that its Cannes berth will serve as the project’s debut in the festival’s immersive section. (deadline.com) The 2026 edition will again use the Carlton Hotel as its public-facing venue, keeping the immersive program physically separate from the Palais while still tying it to Cannes’ main competition calendar. (festival-cannes.com) That leaves Cannes with two parallel showcases in May: films competing for the Palme d’Or at the Palais, and headset-based or site-specific works competing a few blocks away at the Carlton. (festival-cannes.com)