John Travolta had an emotional moment at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival when he returned with daughter Ella Bleu Travolta, more than 30 years after attending the event with his late wife Kelly Preston.
Premiere of his directorial debut Propeller night bus for one-way traffic at the festival on May 15, the Hollywood icon became visibly emotional.
Travolta, who also received a palm of honor from organizers, told the crowd: “This is beyond the Oscar.”
He admitted he “cried like a baby” after hearing his film had been included in the festival’s line-up.
Speak with People magazine, Travolta said: “There’s such a long history of us in Cannes.”
The actor and director also reflected on his first appearance at the festival in 1994, when Pulp Fiction won the Palm d’Or, a milestone he shared with Preston years before their daughter was born. “The birth of it with meaning would have been Pulp Fiction before Ella was born.”
“So it would have been really important for Kelly and me because we saw Pulp Fiction for the first time in Cannes and we won the Palme d’Or,” he said.
Travolta added: “Jump to now, with Ella starring in Propeller One-Way Night Coach, and my Palme d’Or win, there’s this beautiful, glorified connection that’s like the pillars between Pulp winning and Propeller — that it’s a reflection of this win, that it forms this beautiful framework.”
“So yeah, it feels important,” he noted.
On the other hand, John Travolta and Kelly Preston’s daughter Ella opened up about her experience in the film, saying, “I knew it was such a special night for my whole family that I made sure I put myself in the moment and really took it all in.”
“And it actually felt very calm, and very beautiful and very emotional,” she added.
