The Beloved

A father and daughter drama set during a film shoot. Esteban Martínez is a well known director. He returns to Spain to make his new film and casts his estranged daughter Emilia in one of the leads on a set built in the desert. His stated reason is to help her stalled acting career. Living together on the set brings them closer. It also reopens old wounds that never closed. What the film is interested in is the relation of power between them as much as the shoot itself: one is the director, the other the actor, and the two are also father and daughter. Every instruction given on set means two things at once. The narrative joins the tradition of films about the making of a film and brings that tradition to the present. Rodrigo Sorogoyen wrote the screenplay with Isabel Peña; the two have worked together for years. Javier Bardem plays Esteban and Victoria Luengo plays Emilia. It premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival on 16 May 2026 in competition for the Palme d'Or. Its Spanish release date is 26 August 2026. The director described the film as an experiment he took risks on and said he could not have gone this far had it been his first. A strong choice for anyone who likes tense drama built on performance. For a viewer expecting a calm family story, the scenes are built on direct conflict.