Table of Contents | Notebook Special 2026

The Notebook Special is an annual broadsheet-style publication that surveys the evolving world of global moviegoing, with a focus on film festivals, and is distributed free of charge at events such as Cannes—where it will include an extra, Cannes-themed supplement—and our own MUBI Fest.

With this fourth edition, the Notebook Special has, we hope, grown to become a colorful, surprising, and illuminating vessel for the film culture worth celebrating. Importantly, it also stands as the puckish youngest sibling of the wider Notebook family of cinema periodicals, joining our longstanding online outlet and middle-child print magazine. By evolving the form of the Special in 2025—expanding it beyond the Cannes Film Festival only, into a broadsheet published once a year, wrapped by occasional event-specific supplements—we have created the kind of publication we had always wanted to read at film festivals: irreverent in tone, unexpected in topic, and many steps away from more traditional industry-focused coverage. With this new 2026 edition, we have retained this focus, but also widened our lens…

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTEBOOK SPECIAL 2026

Reader Poll

^{Surveying the globe-spanning audience of cinephiles who read Notebook, we asked: If you could have dinner with any filmmaker, living or dead, who would that be and why?}

Spotlights

Revivals

• Restoration Review: British B-features by Josephine Botting
• Restoration Showcase by Notebook

^{Our survey of recently completed restorations and preservations is preceded by an introductory essay focusing on a trend in the contemporary restoration culture, in this case the value of restoring B-features and giving them a renewed second life.}

The Cinephilic City

• Guadalajara by Jose Luis Salazar Gallardo

^{This curated constellation of cinema venues in Guadalajara, Mexico, reveals the unique range of possibilities for filmgoing around the city, from public parks, plazas, and cemeteries, to more traditional screening spaces.}

Your Next Fest

• Lago Film Festival by Alexandre Koberidze

^{For intrepid and curious cinephiles looking for their next cinematic destination, Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze (Dry Leaf, 2025) offers a personal recommendation and reflection for your future itinerary.}

Work Experience

• A State, a Meaning, a Moment by Massoumeh Lahidji

^{In order to hear the stories not always heard, we speak to a professional working in, or adjacent to, the world of film festivals, about the nature and scope of their role. Lahidji, a translator and interpreter who specializes in working with filmmakers, talks about the nuances of her craft.}

At Issue

POV

• For Our Film Mothers by Kiva Reardon

^{Each issue, we invite a notable figure to select and explore a subject of contemporary festival culture that they find critical to its health and success.}

Roundtable

• One Merger After Another: The Battle for Warner Bros. Discovery, a conversation between Andrew deWaard, Manori Ravindran, and Rafa Sales Ross

^{A group of industry professionals discuss the ramifications of the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance, speculating on what the deal—should it proceed— might mean for average moviegoers.}

Centerpiece Poster

• Festival PlayLand by Doug John Miller

Screenwriting

Timeline

• 1926 by Chrystel Oloukoï; 1951 by Cecilia Ermini; 1976 by Owen Hatherley; 2001 by Colleen Kelsey

^{Turning the clock back to reflect on films from 25, 50, 75, and 100 years ago, we asked four writers to select and spotlight a film to appraise, assess, or otherwise reconsider from the vantage point of the present.}

Trend Report

• The Soft Power Pie by James Wham

^{In a world in which China’s economic, sociopolitical, and cultural influence surges as the United States’s power declines, does China need the propulsive soft power push that blockbuster cinema once offered powerful nations?}

Grand Tour

• Interview: Kleber Mendonça Filho, from Critic to Cannes Auteur by Gabe Klinger

^{After a film's premiere, its journey out into the world and into the lives of audiences begins.}

Rerelease

• Introduction by Park Sung-ho; Dreaming About Corsica by Kim Ji-seok

^{By republishing a classic text from the vaults of film history, we place the film culture of today within the context of a richer cinematic past.}

Diversions

• Fest Etiquette by  Hélène Smithee

^{The festivalgoing advice column that boldly festivalgoes where no one has festivalgone before.}

• Comic: Cinesearch by Iza Olesińska
• Word Puzzles: Crossword by Will Nediger
• Word Puzzles: Spiral by Daniel Grinburg
• Comic: So, what're we in the mood for? by Michelle Kwon

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CANNES SUPPLEMENT

Now Showing

Cannes Competition by Daniel Cannesman

^{Your guide to this year’s contenders—with commentary by our resident Cannes advisor.}

Filmmaker Survey: Valeska Grisebach

^{Notebook invited German director Valeska Grisebach, whose new film The Dreamed Adventure (2026) is in the main competition, to answer a round of quickfire questions related to her filmmaking practice and beyond.}

Flashback

Snapshot

• A Deliverance by Robin Campillo

^{On May 20, 1993, during the "Cinema against AIDS" day of the 46th Cannes Film Festival, an Act-Up Activist scaled the Palais des Festivals to hang a banner on the building.}

Location Scouting

• The Mystery of the Iron Mask by Christophe Roustan Delatour

^{A historian from the Museum of the Iron Mask tells the story of the mysterious prisoner that has captured the imaginations of Cannes visitors and locals alike, in literature and cinema, from the seventeenth century to today.}

Diversions

• Comic: 24h Standing Ovation by Max Baitinger
• Word Game: Crossword by Stella Zawistowski