Federico Luis Becomes First Argentine Director to Win a Palme d’Or at Cannes

Argentine filmmaker Federico Luis made history at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival by becoming the first Argentine director to win a Palme d’Or, taking home the festival’s prestigious Short Film Palme d’Or for his latest work, the Mexican-Chilean co-production For the Opponents / Para los contrincantes.

The victory marks a landmark moment not only for the filmmaker, but also for Argentine cinema as a whole. Despite the country’s longstanding relationship with Cannes—which has included filmmakers such as Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, Fernando Solanas, Damián Szifron, Rodrigo Moreno, and Juan José Campanella—Argentina had never before won a Palme d’Or in any competitive section of the festival.

The historic achievement also arrives at a moment of profound uncertainty for the South American country’s film industry, which has faced severe cuts and institutional dismantling under the current government, placing many of the nation’s longstanding systems of public film support under threat.

Luis’s achievement arrives at a particularly resonant moment for Latin American cinema at Cannes, where representation from the region continues to remain comparatively limited despite the international acclaim of many of its filmmakers. His win places Argentina among the select Latin American countries to have received one of the festival’s most prestigious honors.

Produced by Fernando Bascuñán, Fernanda de la Peza, Elena Fortes, and Augusto Matte, and shot in Mexico, For the Opponents delves into the world of children’s boxing and follows a young boy pursuing the great Mexican dream: becoming a boxing champion in the tough neighborhood of Tepito in Mexico City.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1990, Luis has quickly emerged as one of the most acclaimed new voices in Argentine cinema. His debut feature, Simon of the Mountain / Simón de la montaña, won the Grand Prix at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2024, as well as Best Film prizes at Munich and Lima. In 2023, En el mismísimo momento won Best Short Film at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, while Quédate quieto o te amo received the same award at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival.

His short film La Siesta premiered in the Official Short Film Competition at Cannes in 2019, later winning at Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema and receiving an Honorable Mention at the Toronto International Film Festival. He is currently developing his second feature, The Dog Trainer, which has been selected for the Résidence du Festival de Cannes, TorinoFilmLab, the Spanish Film Academy Residency, and Oxbelly.

Luis became the fourth Latin American director to win the Short Film Palme d’Or, following Mexican directors Carlos Carrera for El Héroe / The Hero (1994) and Elisa Miller for Ver Llover / Watching It Rain (2007), as well as Colombian director Simón Mesa Soto for Leidi (2014).

AMORES PERROS Returns to Theaters in June for Its 25th Anniversary in New 4K

MUBI, the global streaming service, film distributor, and production company, has announced a North American theatrical re-release of Amores Perros, the seminal debut feature from five-time Academy Award-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman, 21 Grams). The film will be released in select theaters on June 12, followed by a nationwide expansion on June 19.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, a newly restored 4K version of Amores Perros premiered in the Cannes Classics selection at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival where MUBI acquired worldwide rights, with Alejandro G. Iñárritu and actor Gael García Bernal in attendance. The restoration was carried out by the Criterion Collection, Estudio Mexico Films, and Altavista Films, with color supervision by Iñárritu and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Killers of the Flower Moon, Brokeback Mountain, Babel), and a new 5.1 surround mix by Jon Taylor at NBCUniversal StudioPost.

Widely regarded as one of the most important films of 21st-century cinema, Amores Perros premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, where it won the Grand Prize of the Critics’ Week, launching Iñárritu’s international career. A visceral, multi-narrative portrait of love, loss, and survival in Mexico City, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and remains a landmark in contemporary cinema.

A visceral portrait of love, loss, and survival in Mexico City, Amores Perros explores human chaos and tenderness through three disparate lives linked by a single fatal car crash: Octavio (Gael García Bernal), a teenager who enters the underground dog-fighting scene to flee with his sister-in-law; Valeria (Goya Toledo), a supermodel whose career is upended by the collision; and El Chivo (Emilio Echeverría), an ex-guerrilla turned hitman who witnesses the wreck, altering all of their fates in its aftermath.

Iñárritu says: “It’s incredible that these wild dogs are still barking 25 years later. I’m very excited that MUBI is bringing Amores Perros back to the big screen, especially for younger generations who never had the chance to experience it in theaters. This film changed the lives of all of us who made it.”

Beyond the screen, the anniversary expands with Sueño Perro, a multisensory installation resurrecting never-before-seen 35mm archival footage, currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) until July 26, 2026. Accompanying the celebration is a definitive retrospective artbook published by MACK, which compiles rare on-set photography, original storyboards, and Iñárritu’s handwritten production notes alongside text contributions from renowned filmmakers Denis Villeneuve and Walter Salles—offering a rich insight into the practice and process of one of the world’s leading filmmakers.