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Showcase
Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol
Director: Sylvain Chomet
In Sylvain Chomet’s animation A Magnificent Life, French playwright, filmmaker, and inventor Marcel Pagnol at 61 appears very close to giving up on his career, so a younger Marcel comes to the rescue.
Vie Privée
Director: Rebecca Zlotowski
Rebecca Zlotowski’s anticipated follow-up to Other People’s Children stars Jodie Foster in a French-language role as Lilian Steiner, a renowned psychiatrist investigating the death of one of her patients.
Director: Julia Ducornau
After winning the Palme d'Or for Titane, controversial director Julia Ducournau returns with another nightmarishly weird offering.
Director: Ugo Bienvenu
This debut feature film from illustrator and graphic novel creator Ugo Bienvenu has much on its mind, telling a story of unexpected friendship and the fate of a world impacted by climate change.
La Venue de l'avenir
Director: Cédric Klapisch
Period coming-of-age drama film co-written and directed by Cédric Klapisch.
Director: Robin Campillo
Defying his bourgeois family’s expectations by starting a masonry apprenticeship, Enzo embarks on a path far removed from the prestigious life his parents had envisioned for him.
Un simple accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Vahid, an Azerbaijani auto mechanic, was once imprisoned by Iranian authorities. During his sentence, he was interrogated blindfolded.
Director: Richard Linklater
The story of Jean-Luc Godard making Breathless, told by American director Richard Linklater in the form and spirit of the times.
Director: Oliver Laxe
Part existential road movie, part apocalyptic sci-fi, Sirât mixes a bit of Zabriskie Point and Fury Road and shakes them up.
Le Berger et l’Ours
Director: Max Keegan
Set high in the majestic French Pyrenees, this documentary explores a conflict provoked by the reintroduction of brown bears in the midst of a traditional shepherding community.
L’Etranger
Director: François Ozon
Sixty years after Luchino Visconti, François Ozon has adapted a monumental work of literature for the screen – The Stranger by Albert Camus.
La Danse des renards
Director: Valéry Carnoy
At a sports boarding school, talented young boxer Camille narrowly survives a fatal accident, saved by his best friend Matteo.
Discovery
Le Grand Déplacement
Director: Jean-Pascal Zadi
Climate change, overpopulation, and political inertia have pushed Earth to the brink. In a desperate bid for a fresh start, France decides to launch its first "popular space relocation programme" — essentially, deporting its less privileged citizens into orbit in search of a better life.
Partir un jour
Director: Amélie Bonnin
Singer Juliette Armanet plays Cécile, a celebrity chef who returns home to help out at her parents’ roadside restaurant.
Les Filles désir
Director: Princia Car
During the summer holidays Omar, 20, and his group of friends work as monitors in a children’s summer camp in inner-city Marseille.
Les Musiciens
Director: Grégory Magne
After her father’s death, Astrid Thompson finally manages to bring together the four best soloists in the world to perform a unique concert reuniting four instruments made by Stradivarius – her late father’s dream.
Là où on s'aime, il ne fait jamais nuit
Director: Stevan Lee Mraovitch
In Paris, Seydou, a migrant from Senegal, endures long hours as a food delivery driver, navigating a city that barely acknowledges him
Panorama
Director: Valérie Lemercier
For Aline Dieu, nothing in the world matters more than music, family and love.
Dossier 137
Director: Dominik Moll
Stéphanie, a dedicated police officer working for the French equivalent of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, is assigned to investigate a case involving a young man who was seriously injured amid the chaos of a tense “gilets jaunes” protest in Paris.
Director: Yann Gozlan
Clarissa, a writer lacking inspiration, joins a prestigious artist residency at the cutting edge of technology.
Chien 51
Director: Cedric Jimenez
This sci-fi thriller set in a dystopian Paris in 2045 has a starry cast led by Gilles Lellouche, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Louis Garrel.
Un ours dans le jura
Director: Frank Dubosc
A freak run-in with a black bear drives Michel (Franck Dubosc) off the road one wintry Christmas Eve, leading to the deaths of two strangers.
Director: Diane Kurys
The tumultuous love story between two cinema stars at the height of their glory: Yves Montand and Simone Signoret.
Director: Grand Corps Malade, Mehdi Idir
A cinematic tribute to one of the icons of French chanson, Charles Aznavour.
Les Enfants vont biens
Director: Nathan Ambrosioni
After many years, Suzanne and her two children unexpectedly show up at the home of her sister Jeanne.
Bergers
Director: Sophie Deraspe
Mathyas gives up his uninspiring white collar job to become a shepherd in rural France in Sophie Deraspe's award winning latest.
Dites-Lui que je l'aime
Director: Romane Bohringer
In this deeply personal hybrid film, Romane Bohringer, long recognised for her many roles in French cinema since the 1980s, creates parallel stories of daughterly grief, including her own.
Director: Denys Arcand
Partly a reflection on life and legacy, partly a playful skewering of contemporary society, the latest from Canadian icon Denys Arcand is a touching comedy with a lot of heart.
La Divine
Director: Guillaume Nicloux
Sumptuous, rapturous, and full of drama, Sarah Bernhardt’s life is here to be experienced in all its theatrical glory – just as La Divine intended.
L’Inconnu de la Grande Arche
Director: Stéphane Démoustier
French President François Mitterrand decides to launch an international architectural competition for the flagship project of his mandate: the Great Arch of La Défense, aligned with the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe.
La Petite Dernière
Director: Hafsia Herzi
This adaptation of Fatima Daas’ novel, set in a Paris suburb, is a coming-of-age story about a lesbian Muslim woman who is dealing with pushback from both her family and the outside world – and herself.
La Femme la plus riche du monde
Director: Thierry Klifa
Featuring Isabelle Huppert in a delicious, tailor-made role, writer/director Thierry Klifa’s film is freely inspired by the captivating real-life scandal surrounding Liliane Bettencourt, the heir to the L’Oreal fortune.
La cache
Director: Lionel Baier
It’s Paris, May 1968: A nine-year-old boy is thrilled to stay a few extra days with his grandparents.
Documentary
Colombes sans gravité
Director: Christophe Gargot
Director: Catherine Legault
Non-binary trans photographer Laurence Philomène is undergoing hormone replacement therapy and documenting their transition in a self-portrait project.
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Founded in 1930 in central France, the Troisgros family restaurant has been holding 3 Michelin stars for 55 years over four generations.
La Ferme des Bertrand
Director: Gilles Perret
In the French Alps in 1972 the Bertrand dairy farm run by three brothers is filmed for the first time.
Le Berger et l’Ours
Director: Max Keegan
Set high in the majestic French Pyrenees, this documentary explores a conflict provoked by the reintroduction of brown bears in the midst of a traditional shepherding community.
Le Chagrin et la pitié
Director: Marcel Ophüls
Marcel Ophüls four-hour portrait of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand under German occupation from 1940-44 is one of the greatest films ever made, as important as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah as an essential historical record in its own right.
Écrire la Vie - Annie Ernaux racontée par des lycéennes et des lycéens
Director: Claire Simon
How is Annie Ernaux’s work taught? How is it received, studied, and read? How do today’s youth, in France and beyond, engage with her writings?
Animation
Marcel et Monsieur Pagnol
Director: Sylvain Chomet
In Sylvain Chomet’s animation A Magnificent Life, French playwright, filmmaker, and inventor Marcel Pagnol at 61 appears very close to giving up on his career, so a younger Marcel comes to the rescue.
Director: Ugo Bienvenu
This debut feature film from illustrator and graphic novel creator Ugo Bienvenu has much on its mind, telling a story of unexpected friendship and the fate of a world impacted by climate change.
Le Secret des mésanges
Director: Antoine Lanciaux
Antoine Lanciaux’s first long feature is a joyful story depicted through the meticulous art of cutout animation.
Classic
Buffet froid
Director: Bertrand Blier
Rigorously absurd contemporary film noir which presents every character, incident and situation known to the genre, but none of the customary explanations, motivations or consequences.
Grosse fatigue
Director: Michel Blanc
The story of a film star whose life comes undone when he is upstaged by a look-alike intent on the star's very persona.
Fantômas: A l’ombre de la guillotine
Director: Louis Feuillade
First episode of the legendary Gaumont silent series with live piano and cello accompaniment by Jane Gardner and Caroline Salmon.
Harry, Un ami qui vous veut du bien
Director: Dominik Moll
To mark the 25th anniversary of Dominik Moll’s Hitchcockian thriller, the Festival presents a restored copy of the film.
Director: Claude Berri
The sun-dappled beauty of the Provence countryside belies dark motivations in Claude Berri’s monumental two-part pastoral tragedy.
Manon des Sources
Director: Claude Berri
The timeless story continues in the award-winning sequel to Jean De Florette.
La Reine Margot
Director: Patrice Chéreau
Margot (Isabelle Adjani) is one of several in line to inherit the crown in France, where Roman Catholics and Protestants are jockeying for power.
La Femme du boulanger
Director: Marcel Pagnol
When the village baker refuses to bake bread because his unfaithful wife has left with a handsome shepherd, the individual drama takes on a collective dimension.
Le Dîner de cons
Director: Francis Veber
One of the highest-grossing French films of recent years, Le Dîner de cons features a particularly French blend of social satire and adultery.
Le Chagrin et la pitié
Director: Marcel Ophüls
Marcel Ophüls four-hour portrait of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand under German occupation from 1940-44 is one of the greatest films ever made, as important as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah as an essential historical record in its own right.
Director: Marcel Pagnol
Albert Topaze, a serious schoolteacher addicted to “rote” morality, works at a private school run by supremely money-grubbing M. Muche, whose daughter, also a teacher, makes cynical use of the knowledge that Topaze loves her.
Extras: Screenings supported by Institut français
Un métier sérieux
Director: Thomas Lilti
Having previously drawn on his background as a doctor for the films Hippocrates and The Freshmen, in his latest dramatically inflected comedy writer-director Thomas Lilti trains his observant eye on a new milieu: high school.
Revenir
Director: Jessica Palud
A Frenchman in his early thirties returns to the farm of his childhood in this rural family drama, a suitably down-to-earth adaptation of a novel by Serge Joncour.
Langue étrangère
Director: Claire Burger
French exchange student Fanny bonds with her German pen pal Lena as the teenagers become more politicised.
Director: Aurel
The unknown story of a brilliant illustrator Josep Bartolí.
Les Choses qu’on dit, les choses qu’on fait
Director: Emmanuel Mouret
The set-up is a classic one: two strangers, thrown together by circumstance, while away the time chatting about love against the stunning backdrop of the French countryside
Nina et le secret du hérisson
Director: Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Felicioli
An exquisite and enchanting animation featuring the voice talents of Audrey Tautou and Guillaume Canet.
Les Goûts et les couleurs
Director: Michel Leclerc
A classy young Parisian singer, Marcia, is recording an album with her idol Darédjane, a rock icon from the 70s.
Allons enfants
Director: Thierry Demaizière, Alban Teurlai
A prestigious Paris city centre high school gambles that they can change the prospects for struggling students through Hip Hop.
Une Affaire de principe
Director: Antoine Raimbault
The European Commissioner for Health, John Dalli, is accused of corruption and trading in influence in a scandal related to the tobacco industry.
Une affaire d’honneur
Director: Vincent Perez
In 1887 Parisian society is experiencing transformations that will resonate for decades to come.
Le Grand Chemin
Director: Jean-Loup Hubert
In this bittersweet charmer, Louis, a nine-year-old boy from Paris, spends his summer holiday in rural Brittany.
Les Pires
Director: Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret
The challenges of street casting are explored in this drama about a film within a film.
Borgo
Director: Stéphane Demoustier
The perfect blend of prison film, detective movie, portrait of a woman and a deep dive into Corsican society.
Shorts
Director: Various
Spot the film-making talents of tomorrow in this selection of garlanded francophone shorts from France and Belgium.
