Both Leads Of Queer Film “Coward” Share Best Actor At Cannes 2026
Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne walked the Cannes stage together on 27 May 2026 to accept the 79th Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actor award, jointly, for their performances in Coward, the new queer war drama from Belgian director Lukas Dhont.
A queer love story behind the trenches
Set in the trenches of the First World War, Coward follows Pierre, a shy young Belgian soldier played by Macchia, and Francis, a charismatic performer played by Campagne who stages theatrical shows for the troops. Their romance plays out behind the front line. Rather than framing masculinity through aggression, the film leans into vulnerability, fear and performance as forms of survival. Even the title was chosen to question traditional ideas of bravery.
The Paris bookstore photo that started it all
Dhont, best known for Close, told Festival de Cannes the film was inspired by a single black-and-white photograph he found in a Paris bookstore. The image showed soldiers performing onstage in handmade skirts crafted from sandbags and jewellery fashioned from old ammunition. Historians told him that in every army, men waiting to return to the front have turned the tools of destruction into art as a way of escape.
Two opposite energies, one perfect tie
For casting, Dhont built the film around two opposite energies. He visited agricultural schools in Belgium looking for someone naturally quiet to play Pierre, and noticed how softly Macchia spoke when they met in a school courtyard. Campagne brought the opposite magnetism, despite never having trained as a dancer or singer.
“Courage and cowardice are always linked to a person’s capacity for violence,” Dhont said. “It’s more about questioning than judging.”
A queer love story sharing the top acting honour at Cannes is the kind of moment we needed this festival season. The pair hugged onstage as they accepted the prize, and that image quickly circulated online almost as much as the film itself. For the full interview with Dhont and more on his casting proces
