Busan 2026: Majidi wins main prize with 'Midday Meal' – and the film is Oscar-relevant

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Busan 2026: Majidi wins main prize with 'Midday Meal' – and the film is Oscar-relevant.

It was a moment that drew attention in Busan: Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi accepted the main prize of the 31st Busan International Film Festival – and dedicated it to the Iranian people. This is reported by Hollywood Reporter and Variety from the festival's closing ceremony.

The award-winning film is called "Midday Meal" (German: "Mittagsmahl"), and its story is as simple as it is politically charged: A village teacher fights to ensure his students continue to receive a free lunch – even though the government is cutting the funds for it. What sounds like a quiet social drama is, according to Variety, a contemporary parable about moral choices under pressure.

For you, this means: An experienced Iranian director enters with a film that directly negotiates the reality of his country – and now gets a central Asian festival stage for it.

What makes the victory special?

Busan is not a festival that measures itself by stars and glamour – here, Asian auteur cinema is celebrated, and the prizes therefore carry political weight. When an Iranian film stands at the top, it is a signal: to the film scene, but also to audiences in Iran itself. Majidi, who directed the dedication to the people in his homeland, makes clear with this gesture that this prize belongs not only to cinematic language, but to those the film tells stories about.

What does this have to do with the Oscars?

Specifically: "Midday Meal" qualifies through its win in Busan for the race for Best International Film at the upcoming Oscar ceremony. The main prize of the Busan Festival is considered one of the Academy's official qualifying windows. The film is not yet nominated – but the first hurdle has been cleared, and Iranian films have rarely made it this far in this race lately. Variety describes the winning film as "simple, starkly powerful contemporary parable" – exactly this mix of documentary calm and political explosiveness is what makes international jurys sit up and take notice.

simple, starkly powerful contemporary parable about a rural schoolteacher making difficult moral choices to ensure his students continue to receive a free lunch in the face of government cuts

Who else won in Busan?

The remaining prizes of the closing ceremony were broadly distributed across the Asian region: Best Director went to Lee Yun Chan from Taiwan. The acting awards were given to Zhou Xun and Kashun Himeno. This shows once again that the 2026 jury has the entire continent in view – Taiwan, China and Japan were represented alongside Iran.

What this means for you

If you're interested in Iranian cinema, "Midday Meal" is a film you should keep on your radar. Majidi tells his story without pathos, with documentary calm – precisely why the film works for an international audience. Whether it ultimately makes it onto the Oscar shortlist now depends on how strongly the film is perceived in the US in the coming months. The stage is prepared.

Sources: Hollywood Reporter, Variety