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The American French Film Festival is marking its 30th anniversary with one of its biggest lineups to date, bringing 60 French films and series to Hollywood, including five international Oscar contenders and new movies
starring Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Camille Cottin.
Running Nov. 3-8 at the Directors Guild of America Theater Complex in Los Angeles, the milestone edition will showcase 31 fiction features, 11 series, four documentaries and 14 shorts, with 58 titles competing for festival awards. Nearly half of the lineup arrives directly from this year’s editions of Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno and Toronto, while 19 titles will screen before their release in France.
France’s Oscar submission, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Grand Prize winner “Minotaur,” will be among five films representing countries in the international feature race, underscoring France’s growing role as a production and financing hub for foreign auteurs. The others, (also French co-productions, are Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden,” representing Japan; Lukas Dhont’s “Coward,” Belgium’s submission; Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner “Fjord,” representing Romania; and Laïla Marrakchi’s “Strawberries,” Morocco’s entry.
Animation will have a significant presence, led by opening-night film “In Waves,” directed by Phuong Mai Nguyen and presented with Netflix, alongside Louis Clichy’s “Iron Boy,” handled by Sony Pictures Classics, and Dimitri Planchon and Jean-Paul Gigne’s “Blaise.”
The anniversary comes nearly three decades after the Franco-American Cultural Fund launched the festival as a bridge between the French industry and Hollywood. Since 1997, the organization says it has showcased more than 1,200 French films and series in Los Angeles and brought generations of French filmmakers, actors, writers, composers and producers before their U.S. counterparts.
“This year, there will be another spectacular selection and delegation to celebrate the 30th anniversary event at the Directors Guild of America, making TAFFF the second oldest film festival in the city of Angels,” said Taylor Hackford, former DGA president and board member of the Franco-American Cultural Fund.
Among the edition’s headline presentations is the first U.S. screening of Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle,” the sprawling two-part biopic starring Simon Abkarian as the French general. The saga has been thriving at the French box office despite its length and historical subject; and was shortlisted to represent France in the Oscar race. Baudry and Abkarian are expected to attend a back-to-back marathon screening on Nov. 7, ahead of the film’s U.S. rollout through Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The festival will also host the U.S. premiere of “All About Corinne,” a comedy directed Marc Fitoussi (“Call My Agent!) and starring Isabelle Huppert, and the North American premiere of Guillaume Canet’s Cannes-premiering psychological thriller “Karma,” starring Cotillard. Stéphane Brizé’s Venice best screenplay winner “A Good Little Soldier” will receive its West Coast premiere, while Alexandre Smia’s feature directing debut “Jupiter” will screen ahead of its French release.
This year’s program also reflects the festival’s shift from spring to the heart of the fall awards season, allowing it to draw heavily from Cannes. Nineteen titles that bowed on the Croisette will travel to Los Angeles. Besides “Minotaur,” “De Gaulle,” “All of a Sudden,”“Coward,” “Fjord,” “In Waves,” “Iron Boy,” and “Strawberries,” other Cannes alumni include Pierre Salvadori’s Cannes opener “The Electric Kiss,” Marie Kreutzer’s Léa Seydoux starrer “Gentle Monster,” Bertrand Mandico’s “Roma Elastica,” starring Cotillard and Noémie Merlant, and Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s “A Woman’s Life.”
“For 30 years, The American French Film Festival has established itself as a leading and unmissable international platform on the global circuit for promoting French films and series,” said François Truffart, who has served as the festival’s executive producer and programmer since 2004.
Truffart pointed to the festival’s history of following filmmakers from early shorts through awards recognition, launching a series competition alongside its movie program and championing female directors. TAFFF also works with U.S. distributors throughout the year to support French theatrical releases.
“It is truly an honor and privilege to see all of our efforts come to fruition and to introduce American audiences including guest members of the DGA, WGA, and this year, SAG-AFTRA, to an exclusive and diverse lineup, during the heart of awards season,” he said.
The lighter side of the program includes “Just an Illusion,” the latest comedy from “The Intouchables” filmmakers Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, starring Cottin, and Nicolas Charlet and Bruno Lavaine’s “The Better Me,” with Laurent Lafitte in a dual role.
The fest will wrap with Anthony Marciano’s “The American Dream,” a comedy-drama Jean-Pascal Zadi and Raphaël Quenard star. The movie is inspired by French NBA agents Bouna Ndiaye and Jérémy Medjana, whose clients have included Victor Wembanyama, Rudy Gobert and Nicolas Batum.
Deputy festival director Anouchka van Riel described the broader selection as “a cinema of resistance,” pointing to characters confronting everything from corporate systems to online mobs and exploitative labor.
“Between those who fight and those who care, the lineup returns to one question: at a time when intelligence is becoming artificial, what remains human?” van Riel said. “These films answer with the things no machine has learned (yet): to refuse, and to care.”
The festival’s 30th edition will close Nov. 8 with its awards ceremony at the DGA.
