Pan’s Labyrinth returns to Cannes 20 years after record 22‑minute ovation
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Director Guillermo del Toro posing at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in May 2025.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" returns to Cannes Classics, digitally remastered and set for a 3D re-release after receiving the festival's longest ovation 20 years ago.
- Del Toro conceived the film after 9/11, exploring a rigid captain facing magic, questioning a storyteller's role and contrasting imaginary notions of right and wrong.
- Director del Toro described the 22-minute standing ovation for "Pan's Labyrinth" as a "rush of human emotion," recalling Alfonso Cuaron's advice to "let love go in."
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CANNES, France - Mexican director Guillermo del Toro received the longest-ever standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival two decades ago for his historical fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, which returns this year to the Cannes Classics section.
Speaking to Reuters, del Toro said the 22-minute ovation given to his Spanish-language film 20 years ago produced a “rush of human emotion.”
“Alfonso Cuaron was there with me because we produced the movie together and he said, ‘let it in, man,’” recalled del Toro on May 12. “I’m not very good with praise and he said, ‘let it in, let love go in’ and I experienced it like that.”
Pan’s Labyrinth did not win the top-prize Palme D’Or that year, but del Toro went on to win the best picture Oscar for his fish monster love story The Shape Of Water in 2018.
The film, which has been digitally remastered, is set in Spain under the Franco dictatorship and follows a young girl who is enticed by a magical faun to complete three dangerous tasks while also dealing with her ailing pregnant mother and cruel military stepfather.
The concept for Pan’s Labyrinth came when del Toro was at a low point in his creativity following the Sept 11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York.
“I felt really defenceless,” he said, and started to question what the role of a storyteller is in this situation.
“I thought it would be really interesting to have a man of rigidity, a captain, having to face magic - something that seems imaginary, but his own notions of what is right and what is wrong, the captain’s notions, are also imaginary,” he added.
The cult classic, which will also be shown in 3D, is set to be re-released in theatres later this year. REUTERS
