In its very first year of participation in the event, the Nepali film Elephants in the Fog has made history as it became the first movie to receive an award at the Cannes Film Festival 2026, winning the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 79th edition of the international film festival.
Written and directed by Abinash Bikram Shah in his directorial debut, the movie is also the first Nepali movie that has been selected for the segment that runs parallel to the main section’s competition for the Palme d’Or.
Elephants in the Fog plot
Elephants in the Fog is set in Thori, a small forested village of Nepal’s southern Terai plains. The film is centered on the experiences of transgender women residing in a society that rejects them.
The movie primarily revolves around Pirati, the matriarch of a Kinnar community, whose dreams of fleeing and being with her lover are shattered due to her daughter going missing. She will have to make a decision regarding her need for freedom versus her duty towards her community, as per the official synopsis.
Abinash Bikram Shah’s acceptance speech
‘For so long, the lives of Pirati and her daughters, the communities and all the persons, who are in the East, have been kept invisible. By bringing our story here and by recognising it with this award, we have pulled those margins into the light. We have made the invisible visible,’ Abinash Bikram Shah said during his acceptance speech.
Elephants in the Fog cast and makers
Elephants in the Fog stars Pushpa Thing, Deepika Yadav, Jasmine Bishwakarma, Shanti Giri, Gauri Malla, Maotse Gurung, Sanjay Gupta Dura, Mahima Nawabag, and Akanksha Karki.
It is jointly produced by two Nepalese film production companies, Underground Talkies Nepal and Jayanthi Creations, in association with firms from France, Germany, Brazil,
Abinash Bikram Shah at Cannes
Cannes is not alien territory to Shah, who won the Special Mention Award for his short film, Lori, at the 75th edition of the festival, making him the first Nepali filmmaker whose short film won the award. Previously, he has written films like Kalo Pothi, Highway, and Tatini.
Cannes 2026 awards
Everytime by Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner clinched the main Un Certain Regard prize; the film follows a family on vacation whose life changes forever because of a tragedy. Louis Clichy’s Iron Boy, the first solo directorial work of the Pixar veteran who had been working as an animator in WALL-E and Up, was awarded the Special Jury Prize. Iron Boy is a hand-drawn animated film that follows a young boy of 11 who grows up in rural France.
Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset won the best actor award for his performance in Rafiki Fariala’s Congo Boy, whereas the award for best actress went jointly to the three actresses who starred in Valentina Maurel’s family drama Siempre Soy Tu Animal Materno set in Costa Rica – Marina de Tavira, Daniela Marin Navarro, and Mariangel Villegas.
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