French documentary filmmaker Maxence Voiseux clearly has patience, stamina and the desire to immerse audiences in a world that they are likely not familiar with. For his feature debut, Gabin, he filmed a young man for a decade, following him and his feelings of being caught between continuing his family’s farm life, as envisioned by his father, and the slowly developing desire to follow his own dreams from age 8 until age 18. The documentary world premieres in the Directors’ Fortnight lineup of Cannes 2026 on Thursday, May 14. Gabin is the youngest child of the Jourdel family in a rural part of Artois, a region in the north of France, “where leaving feels like betrayal, and staying comes at a cost,” as press notes highlight. Destined to take over his father’s butcher shop, he feels torn between family loyalty, the desire to save the farm from financial ruin and dreams to break free. Gabin unfolds in a neglected countryside far away from the world’s eyes and hit by globalization. “I turn my camera towards what remains of that heritage: men who …