1946 Cannes Film Festival
1946 film festival edition, first edition
The 1st annual Cannes Film Festival was held from 20 September to 5 October 1946. Twenty-one countries presented their films at the "First Cannes International Film Festival", which took place at the former Casino of Cannes. Only one year after the end of World War II, most of the films were about the war. There arose several technical issues, such as the tarpauline cover blowing away in a storm on the day before the winners were to be announced, the reels of Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious shown in reverse order, and Miguel M. Delgado’s The Three Musketeers projected upside-down.
During the first festival, the jury was made up of one representative per country, with French historian Georges Huisman as the Jury President. With more emphasis on creativity than in competitiveness, eighteen nations presented their films. Eleven of them tied for the first Grand Prix of the International Festival.
Jury
The following people were appointed as the Jury for the feature and short films:
Georges Huisman (historian) (France) - Jury President
Iris Barry (USA)
Marcel Beaulieu (Canada)
Antonin Brousil (Czechoslovakia)
J.H.J. De Jong (Netherlands)
Don Tudor (Romania)
Samuel Findlater (UK)
Sergei Gerasimov (Soviet Union)
Jan Korngold (Poland)
Domingos Mascarenhas (Portugal)
Hugo Mauerhofer (Switzerland)
Filippo Mennini (Italy)
Moltke-Hansen (Norway)
Fernand Rigot (Belgium)
Kjell Stromberg (Sweden)
Rodolfo Usigli (Mexico)
Youssef Wahbi (Egypt)
Helge Wamberg (Denmark)
Competition
The following films competed for the Grand Prix:
Short films
The following short films were selected for the Grand Prix du court métrage:
Awards
The following films and people received the 1946 awards:
Official awards
Feature Films
Grand Prix du Festival International du Film:
Brief Encounter by David Lean
Hets by Alf Sjöberg
The Last Chance by Leopold Lindtberg
The Lost Weekend by Billy Wilder
María Candelaria by Emilio Fernández
Men Without Wings by Frantisek Cáp
Neecha Nagar by Chetan Anand
Red Meadows by Bodil Ipsen and Lau Lauritzen Jr.
“1946 Cannes Film Festival” enters the record as 1946 film festival edition, first edition. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cannes, Film and Festival can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1946 Cannes Film Festival” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Cannes, Film and Festival provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q785043. Authority coordinates are 43.553, 7.021. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1946 Cannes Film Festival”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1946 Cannes Film Festival primary sources, 1946 Cannes Film Festival archive and Cannes research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1946 Cannes Film Festival”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1946 Cannes Film Festival” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.