France Télévisions and Brut, official partners of the Cannes Film Festival, announced today that actress Eye Haïdara will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 79th edition, set for May 12–23 at the Palais des Festivals. She succeeds Laurent Lafitte in the role and is believed to be the first Black person — man or woman — to hold it in the position's 33-year history.
Born March 7, 1983, in Bamako to Malian parents — her father also has Moroccan roots — Haïdara grew up in Paris, trained at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, and built her early career in theater. She made her film debut in 2007 in Audrey Estrougo's Regarde-moi and worked briefly with Jean-Luc Godard in 2008, before wider recognition came through Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache's Le Sens de la fête, which earned her nominations for both the Prix Lumière and the César for Best Female Newcomer. She joined the Arte series En thérapie in 2022, appeared most recently in Joachim Lafosse's latest film, and is currently in Mélissa Godet's La Maison des femmes. She also leads Rachel Lang's Mata, a French-language espionage thriller in which she plays a French intelligence agent operating in Niger — distributed by Warner Bros. France and scheduled for theatrical release on April 22, 2026 — and is set to appear in Agnès Jaoui's L'Objet du délit.
As mistress of ceremonies, Haïdara will take the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière to welcome the Feature Film Jury and introduce Jury President Park Chan-wook at the opening on May 12, then return to announce the Palme d'Or and all other awards at the closing on May 23. Both ceremonies will be broadcast on France TV.
Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand will receive honorary Palmes d'Or at this year's edition.
