The American French Film Festival, running from October 28 to November 3 at the DGA Theater Complex, has unveiled its 2026 lineup.
Program highlights among the 70 films and series include French Oscar entry It Was Just An Accident by Iranian director Jafar Panahi; Oliver Laxe’s Spanish Academy Award entry Sirât, which is a co-production with France, and Yann Gozlan’s Guru, which is the closing film.
As previously announced, Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life is the opening film. Jodie Foster leads the cast, as a psychiatrist who mounts a private investigation into the suspicious death of one of her patients, with support from French stars Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira and Vincent Lacoste.
Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, a black-and-white tribute to the French new wave revolving around the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s classic film Breathless, will play as the Centerpiece film.
Closing night film, psychological thriller Guru, stars Pierre Niney as a charismatic and manipulative self-help guru, with the cast also featuring Marion Barbeau, Anthony Bajon and Holt McCallany.
The selection features a raft of films that have made waves on the festival circuit in recent months including Claire Denis’ The Fence, Valérie Donzelli’s At Work, François Ozon’s The Stranger, Sylvie Chomet’s animated feature A Magnificent Life, Laurent Cantet’s posthumous work Enzo, directed by his longtime friend Robin Campillo, Cédric Jimenez sci-fi action-picture Dog 51 and Martin Bourboulon’s 13 Days, 13 Nights.
A new sidebar bannered New Wave Spotlight launches this year to showcase first and second films, with the first selection featuring Martin Jouvat’s Baise-en-ville, Anna Cazenave Cambet’s Love Me Tender, Lisa Akoka and Romane Gueret’s Summer Beats, Joséphine Japy’s The Wonderers and Aurélien Peyre’s Hearts on Fire.
The festival is also introducing the New Horizons sidebar for films by both emerging and established directors with a unique cinematic vision. Among the selection are Sirât, Anton Balekdjian, Léo Couture and Mattéo Eustachon’s Drifting Laurent; Léonor Seraille’s Ari, Louise Hémon’s The Girl In The Snow and Quentin Dupieux’s The Piano Accident.
The festival will also showcase 10 new drama series including Jessica Pallud’s action-adventure show The Seduction; political thriller The Deal, directed by Jean-Stépane Bron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Alice Wincour, and Cédric Anger’s thriller The Hunt for Gaumont and Apple TV+.
As previously announced, the event will also screen six documentaries including Guillaume Ribot’s All I Had Was Nothing, going behind the scenes of the making of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, and Sepideh Farsi’s work Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk, created from video-calls between the French Iranian director and Fatma Hassona, a 24-year-old aspiring photojournalist living in Gaza.
The TAFFF audience will be invited to vote in the three categories of cinema, television, and Shorts.
For the 16th year, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) will partner with the festival for the Critics’ Award and the first feature award in the cinema category. A professional jury will vote for the Best Series Award.
The 2025 Awards winners will be announced on November 4 and presented to the recipients during a special ceremony taking place in Paris on November 12
The American French Film Festival was created and is produced by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a joint initiative between the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the Motion Picture Association (MPA), France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) and the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW).
It is presented in association with CNC – Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, with the support of Villa Albertine, The Consulate General of France in Los Angeles, and Unifrance.
“The 2025 TAFFF Selection reflects the stature the Festival has achieved over the past nearly three decades. It is recognized by distributors and studios as the foremost platform for the promotion of French productions and co-productions in the United States,” said François Truffart, Executive Producer and Programmer.
