The a certain look of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival ended with a note of emotion and commitment, marking a highlight for Arabic cinema and in particular for Palestine and Tunisia.
This year, the selection highlighted 20 feature films from around the world, including 9 first films eligible for the gold camera. True to its ambition to reveal singular voices, this parallel section within the official selection has honored daring, political and powerfully anchored works in contemporary realities.
From the opening evening, an unprecedented event set the tone for this 2025 edition: for the first time in the history of the festival, it was a Tunisian film that opened a certain look. Promised the skyproduced by Erige Sehiri, inaugurated the section with elegance and conviction. After Under the figsselected at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2022, the Tunisian filmmaker confirms her anchoring in the international landscape, this time offering a larger work, both intimate and political, where the quest for freedom is mixed with the wounds of contemporary history. This opening choice sounds like a strong signal, both for Tunisian cinema and for the recognition of Arab filmmakers in Cannes.
But it is another Arab film that marked the spirits and conquered the jury: Once Upon a Time in Gazaproduced by the Arab & Tarzan Nasser brothers, won the staging prize. The film stands out as an overwhelming work, as poignant as it is necessary, which plunges into the heart of a ravaged Gaza, in a fresco that is both realistic and poetic, where humans resist the absurd of everyday life.
The two Palestinian filmmakers, known for their committed cinema (Degraded,, Gaza my love), deliver their most powerful film here to date, in a context of extreme emergency. The reward they receive goes beyond the purely artistic framework: it symbolizes a gesture of recognition, at a time when Palestinian artists are struggling to make their voices heard on international scenes, even though their land is plagued by unprecedented violence.
The president of the jury, the British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker, surrounded by Louise Courvoisier, Vanja Kaludjercic, Roberto Minervini and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, praised the wealth and the diversity of proposals. The charts reflects this diversity, with prices awarded to emerging filmmakers from various backgrounds.
Summaries – a certain look 2025
- A certain look price :: Misteriosa Mirada del Flamenco (The mysterious look of the flamingo) by Diego Céspedes – First film
- Jury prize :: A poeta from Simón Mesa Soto
- Staging price : Arab & Tarzan Nasser for Once Upon a Time in Gaza
- Best actor : Frank Dillane in Urchin of Harris Dickinson
- Best actress : Cléo Diára in O Riso ea Faca (The laugh and the knife) of Pedro Pinho
- Best scenario :: Pillion by Harry Lighton – First film
In a flickering world, the cinema of a certain look reminds us that singular looks are more necessary than ever. And this year, they came from Gaza, Tunis, Lisbon, Bogota or London, carried by a generation of filmmakers who film to exist, to resist, and to continue to believe in the power of the story.
Neïla Driss
