The 2026 Cannes Film Festival is bringing a strong MENA presence to the Croisette, with filmmakers from Morocco, Palestine and Egypt-France landing coveted spots across the Competition and Un Certain Regard line-up. Among the biggest names in Competition is Egyptian-French filmmaker Arthur Harari, whose latest film The Unknown marks his return to Cannes as a director. Harari, who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay alongside Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall , previously screened Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle in Un Certain Regard in 2021. Meanwhile, Moroccan director Laila Marrakchi heads to Un Certain Regard with La mas dulce . Marrakchi first made waves at Cannes in 2005 with Marock , and later directed Rock the Casbah and episodes of The Eddy . Her new feature follows two young Moroccan women who travel to southern Spain for strawberry-picking jobs, only to confront exploitation and harassment, and decided to speak out.…