Filipino director Lav Diaz has revealed that a shortened cut of his long-awaited feature Beatrice, The Wife, starring Gael García Bernal as Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, could premiere in Cannes this May.

Speaking in a masterclass at the Doha Film Festival’s Qumra event on Sunday, Diaz said he had just finished cutting a two hour, 45-minute version of the film, even though his long-term plan is for a nine-hour movie.

Quizzed on whether it might be Venice-bound, where his last film Phantosmia played Out of Competition in 2024, the director replied that rather it was aiming for a debut in “an important festival in France”.

Diaz was last in Cannes Official Selection with Norte, the End of History, which premiered in Un Certain Regard in 2013, while his film Ang Hupa (The Halt) premiered in Directors’ Fortnight in 2019.

Per a synopsis released by the films producers Andergraun Films (Spain), Rosa Filmes (Portugal) and Epicmedia Productions (Philippines), the film follows Beatrice Barbosa de Magallanes who fights her survival and that of her children, while her navigator husband tries to carry out an impossible maritime expedition.

The feature, shot in Portugal, Spain and the Philippines, was first announced in 2019, but mystery has swirled around the status of the film and when it was likely to surface at a festival.

The Cannes Film Festival will reveal the bulk of its Official Selection in a press conference in Paris on Thursday, while Directors’ Fortnight will unveil its line-up on April 15.