The twenty-first Cannes Film Fest was planned to take place May 10-24, 1968, but it was cancelled mid-way, due to the social and political turmoil all over France of May 1968.
The festival opened with the restored version of Gone with the Wind, directed by Victor Fleming.
Peter Lennon’s documentary Rocky Road to Dublin was set to be the final film screened at the festival.
On May 17, after the screening, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Lelouch got on stage and announced that, in solidarity with the workers and the students who were protesting all over France, the festival must end.
As a result, many of the directors withdrew their films from the festival.
On May 18, 1968, the screening of Peppermint Frappé by Carlos Saura was canceled.
Finally on May 19, five days before the end of festival’s scheduled run, the event was called off completely.
Jury Members
There was no US representative on the jury of 1968.
André Chamson (France)
Monica Vitti (Italy)
Claude Aveline (France)
Boris von Borrezholm (Germany)
Veljko Bulajić (Yugoslavia)
Paul Cadeac d’Arbaud (France)
Jean Lescure (France)
Louis Malle (France)
Jan Nordlander (Sweden)
Roman Polanski (Poland)
Robert Rozhdestvensky (USSR)
Terence Young (UK)
Feature Film Competition
Seduto alla sua destra by Valerio Zurlini
Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d’une femme by Dominique Delouche
Anna Karenina by Aleksandr Zarkhi
Banditi a Milano by Carlo Lizzani
Charlie Bubbles by Albert Finney
Csillagosok, katonák by Miklós Jancsó
Das Schloß by Rudolf Noelte
Doktor Glas by Mai Zetterling
Feldobott kö by Sándor Sára
Fényes szelek by Miklós Jancsó
Grazie, zia by Salvatore Samperi
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Clive Donner
Hoří, má panenko by Miloš Forman
I protagonisti by Marcello Fondato
Je t’aime, je t’aime by Alain Resnais
Joanna by Mike Sarne
Les Gauloises bleues by Michel Cournot
Mali vojnici by Bahrudin Čengić
O slavnosti a hostech by Jan Němec
Peppermint Frappé by Carlos Saura
Petulia by Richard Lester (UK)
Rozmarné léto by Jiří Menzel
Tuvia Vesheva Benotav by Menahem Golan (Israel)
The Girl on a Motorcycle by Jack Cardiff
The Long Day’s Dying by Peter Collinson
Trilogy by Frank Perry (US)
Yabu no naka no kuroneko by Kaneto Shindō
Zywot Mateusza by Witold Leszczyński
Films Out of Competition
Gone with the Wind by Victor Fleming
Toby Dammit by Federico Fellini
Metzengerstein by Roger Vadim
William Wilson by Louis Malle