World Film Festival in Cannes: 6th Annual Awards Ceremony Brings Together 47 Countries and Announces Seven New Branches Dedicated to Artificial Intelligence

Press Release – Cannes – June 30, 2026

The World Film Festival in Cannes – Remember the Future celebrated its 6th Annual Awards Ceremony on June 27 at the Pullman Cannes Mandelieu, bringing together in-person participants from 47 countries.

Artists, filmmakers, screenwriters, producers, composers, singers, innovators, visionaries, partners, representatives of committed associations and foundations, nominees and laureates from all corners of the world gathered in Cannes to celebrate a cinema that no longer merely tells the world’s story, but seeks to understand it, question it, and transform it.

Born in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, the festival has become a hybrid, monthly international platform dedicated to emerging talent and new forms of storytelling. Over six editions, it has brought together more than 140 nationalities, over 9,000 participants and more than 3,300 winners, cementing its global reach.

The Golden Fireflies, presented during the ceremony, recognized works that were remarkable both for their artistic quality and for their human, social, and societal impact.

This 6th edition revealed a powerful trend: across the world, artists share the same concerns. Mental health, depression, burnout, school bullying, sexual violence, discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, including homophobia and transphobia, the climate emergency, cost of living, social isolation, family exhaustion, and the growing difficulty of accessing culture: the selected works bear witness to a world in profound transformation and remind us that art cannot be separated from reality. Through this programming, the festival shines a light on what many prefer not to see — and reminds us that cinema remains one of the freest spaces for questioning our times.

The evening also embodied this alliance of elegance, creativity, and global awareness through a particularly rich artistic and human program.

The ceremony was hosted by Angélique Cavallari, a Franco-Italian actress known for her roles in Dark Matter, Seven Wishes, and Mancanza-Inferno. Festival founder and president Karolina Bomba wore a creation by Danish couturière Isabell Kristensen, while the audience was treated to a fashion show by Anggy Haïf.

The musical dimension was brought to life by soprano Vanina Aronica, tenor Lorenzo Caltagirone, singer Kyng, and Tom Ball — discovered through Britain’s Got Talent and America’s Got Talent — who performed the world premiere of Boy Scientist Quantum.

The festival also showcased a selection from the Mashup Film Festival, a partner of the World Film Festival in Cannes, featuring “Le CinémiA d’aujourd’hui,” a program by the Association Mashup Cinémi.A dedicated to artificial intelligence.

The evening also honored the renewed collaboration with Objectif 3D Montpellier around the festival’s official teaser, as well as a pop-up exhibition by painter Nadia Chebah. Several partners also presented awards, including Michel Noble, president of the Réseau Géopholis UNESCO PACA Corse, Snowfirefly Zhao for Femmes Leaders Mondiales Monaco, and Aimie Ferry-Sauvaire, president and co-founder of AIKA.

A NEW MILESTONE FOR THE REMEMBER THE FUTURE ECOSYSTEM: SEVEN NEW BRANCHES DEDICATED TO AI-ASSISTED CREATION

Beyond the ceremony itself, this 6th edition marks a major new milestone in the development of the World Film Festival in Cannes – Remember the Future: the announcement of 7 new branches enriching the Remember the Future ecosystem, each dedicated to a new form of creation made possible by artificial intelligence. Film, screenplay, documentary, animation, music, advertising, or immersive worlds: each branch is devoted to a specific creative territory, sharing one founding conviction — artificial intelligence does not erase the artist; it opens new spaces for their imagination.

This announcement builds on a long-standing commitment: as early as 2020, the World Film Festival in Cannes had already dedicated a full award category to works created using artificial intelligence—at a time when the subject remained largely marginal across the international film festival landscape. Six years later, the festival receives a growing number of AI-assisted works every month, across all formats and categories. This evolution has naturally led the festival to take the next step: moving from a pioneering award category to a fully-fledged international ecosystem entirely dedicated to the new forms of creation made possible by artificial intelligence.

These new branches include, notably, the World AI Music Festival in Cannes – Remember the Future and the World AI Script Festival in Cannes – Remember the Future, alongside five other branches already established within the Remember the Future ecosystem, all of which share this same vision of innovation in the service of creativity.

In this context, the World Film Festival in Cannes – Remember the Future upholds a clear ethical stance: yes to innovation, yes to new forms of expression, but only on the condition that consent, transparency, and the protection of intellectual property remain non-negotiable.

This ethical requirement echoes recent international initiatives—such as the Human Consent Registry, which was presented on June 24 at the European Parliament by Cate Blanchett, co-founder of RSL Media. The Human Consent Registry is a public registry that allows anyone to specify the conditions under which their identity may be used by artificial intelligence systems. RSL Media is supported by Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Viola Davis, among others. This initiative serves as a reminder that artificial intelligence tools should enhance human creativity, without ever replacing it or appropriating a work, a voice, an image, or an identity without free, clear, accessible, and actionable consent.

The World Film Festival in Cannes – Remember the Future thus reaffirms its commitment to navigating technological change responsibly, while always placing people, creativity, and authors’ rights at the heart of its development.

While the selected works draw attention to the divisions of our time, they also convey a deeply universal conviction: art remains one of the most powerful drivers of hope, dialogue, and transformation. By giving a platform to artists from all five continents, the festival continues its mission: to showcase emerging talent, champion unique voices, build bridges between cultures, and encourage works that, together, help us imagine the world of tomorrow.

As Karolina Bomba, the festival’s founder and president, points out:

“This 6th edition reminds us that artists often perceive the world’s fractures before institutions do. The role of a festival is not only to recognize outstanding works, but also to listen to what they reveal about our time and to create spaces where imagination and dialogue can become forces for transformation. Remember the Future is not merely an invitation to dream about the future; it is a call to build it—with responsibility, creativity, and humanity.”