Cannes 2026

Cannes Market Accelerator

The National Directors Division (NDD) of the Directors Guild of Canada is proud to announce selections for the NDD Market Accelerator Delegation at the Cannes International Film Festival 2026 running from May 15 – 17.

Berkley Brady

Alberta
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet (Drama)

It’s the summer after high school, and Métis teenager, LOU, is desperate to escape the painful histories of her small-town prairie life. When a cryptic letter arrives from the father she’s never known–a man imprisoned for a crime thatstill haunts her family–Lou fights to protect the people she loves before he can destroy them again.

Producing Partners: 3 Story Pictures

Arshad Khan

Québec
Faultline/Daraar (Drama)

In the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, a Pakistani-Canadian plastic surgeon returns to his homeland to aid relief efforts—only to become entangled in a secret gay affair that ignites a firestorm within his conservative extended family. As the disaster shatters old certainties, hidden lives and nefarious agendas are exposed. Amidst the pain and loss in the rubble, love, hope, and tender joy endure.

Producing Partners: Virinderpal Singh

Yung Chang

Ontario
Eggplant (Crime Drama)

A seasoned con-woman in rural China plans one last marriage scam to buy her freedom, but when a former lover resurfaces unexpectedly, he threatens to expose her operation and forces her to choose between survival and self-determination.

Producing Partners: Dan Montgomery, MDFF (Canada), Christina Piovesan, First Generation Films (Canada), Nai An, Dream Factory (China), Yimin Zhuang, Flying Sparrow Films (China), Game Theory Films (Canada)

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers

Manitoba
Wolves Don’t Live By the Rules (Satire Horror)

While working in her ancestral territory on the chaotic set of a ‘visionary’ film from an ‘indie darling’ male director, a queer Blackfoot filmmaker fights back against abuse on the set and on the land with the help of mysterious ancestral spirits.

Producing Partners: Experimental Forest Films

Lowell Dean

Saskatchewan
Pay or Play (Action Comedy)

A desperate, out-of-work director lands a big budget action movie overseas – only to discover the production is a mafia front and the action is dangerously real.

Producing Partners: TBA

Caitlyn Sponheimer

British Columbia
The Dishes (Comedy)

Locked in an escalating feud over Aunt Gail’s Royal Albert Fine China, cousins Leon and Maggie will do anything to avoid their impending grief…even as the war over the dishes threatens to confront their loss head on.

Producing Partners: Katia Shannon of Herrington Studio; CouKuma Productions

Zarrar Kahn

Ontario
Suffering is Optional (Climate Thriller)

Grappling with climate-catastrophe nightmares, a young actress lands the lead role in her prestigious drama school’s adaptation of Hamlet – where she meets a relentless director who pushes her to the limits of her will.

Producing Partners: Anam Abbas (Other Memory Media), Lindsay Blair Goeldner (LBG Films), Julie Groleau (Couronne Nord ) | Executive Producers – Karen Harnisch, Kaleem Aftab

Darcy Hennessey

British Columbia
Mountain Baby (Dramatic Comedy / Action Adventure / Psychological Drama)

Power couple, Sylvie and Leslie, think that climbing Mount Everest is the ultimate status symbol, but what happens on their climb rocks their marriage to its core and leaves Sylvie having to make a life-altering decision.

Producing Partners: Play Media