Shibboleth, the feature directorial debut of writer-director Alexandra Matheou (A Summer Place), has found its female lead in Greek actress Mary Mina (A Summer Place, TV series Aggeliki), who is known for having played the High Priestess during the Olympic Flame lighting ceremonies since 2024.

The drama is one of this year’s projects in Focus CoPro at Cannes, which selects first features at an early stage from filmmakers selected in the Cannes Film Festival‘s main short film competition section and shorts in the Directors’ Fortnight, as well as from other filmmakers scouted all year round.

The logline for Shibboleth reads: “A surrogate mother joins the couple expecting her baby on a vacation. As a love triangle quietly takes shape, she is confronted with the emotional cost of surrogacy and the realization that her job doesn’t always end at birth.”

On the Focus CoPro website, Matheou shares about the film: “The story unfolds in a place that seems to have defeated death; or so its people believe. For as long as I can remember, my existential anxiety around the subject matter of death has been a constant shadow. This is why I created a playground where I could ask: if eternal life were possible, would it actually make life better? Or would it unravel everything we think we know about living?”

Matheou will world premiere her new short Free Eliza (Notes on an Anatomical Imperfection) on Thursday, May 20, in the Director’s Fortnight.

The short is about a woman born without the ability to smile. Eliza, who is a hotel worker, refuses to change herself “even as a world gripped by toxic positivity demands she conform,” according to a synopsis.

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