Afloat

The pleasure of discovery is endless – as demonstrated by the 11 first and second feature films of the 2026 edition. For the first time in its history, La Semaine de la Critique will open its edition with a debut animated film, In Waves, an adaptation of AJ Dungo’s graphic novel by Franco-Vietnamese director Phuong Mai Nguyen. By revitalising the codes of melodrama, the director gives this story of love and resilience – set in California – a vibrant, pop-infused energy. Its refreshing visual world and the compelling, lifelike embodiment of its performances are the spice of this debut film, where emotions jostle to the music (with Oklou and Rob at the helm). Featuring French voices by Lyna Khoudri, Rio Vega, Biran Ba and Paul Kircher. And English voices by Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu. 

Four other French films won us over this year. In competition, La Gradiva by Marine Atlan. A coming-of-age story where passions and fears set the hearts of a group of French high-school students on a school trip to Pompeii racing. Known for her meticulous work as a cinematographer (Summer Scars, The Rapture, Queens of Drama, Girl in the Snow), in this film, Marine Atlan reveals herself to be an outstanding director and storyteller. Every frame exudes the hazy emotions of a disillusioned generation. In the special screenings, Stonewall a hypersensitive drama by Julien Gaspar-Oliveri, with Bastien Bouillon and newcomers Diego Murgia and Romane Fringeli; and Flesh and Fuel, a gripping romance between two truck drivers separated by the road, directed by Pierre Le Gall and starring Alexis Manenti and Julian Szwiezevski. The former strives to compress frames and perspectives to convey the anxiety brought about by the return of an abusive father, the latter plays on long and short lenses to follow Etienne’s movements and intimate encounters with his crush, Bartosz. Finally, Félix de Givry will close this 65th edition with Goodbye Cruel World, a tribute to the cinema of Louis Malle and François Truffaut. It follows the adventures of Otto, (played by Milo Machado-Graner, revealed in Anatomy of a Fall), an angst-ridden teenager whose unexpected romantic relationship frees him from his dark thoughts. Featuring Jane Beever in her first film role and the familiar voice of Françoise Lebrun as a human, omniscient narrator.  

Other notable firsts for La Semaine de la Critique: a film from Yemen and another from Kosovo are part of this year’s competition. Al Mahattah, first narrative feature film by Sarah Ishaq, borrows from fable and soap opera to depict a country’s divides and women’s uprising against patriarchy. The film draws its breath and inspiration from female solidarity. The carefully crafted contrast between luminous sisterhood and the bleakness of escalating civil strife makes for a compelling tragicomedy. Then on to Pristina, with Dua, second feature film by Blerta Basholli, which portrays a teenage girl in the 90s confronting reality more harshly with each passing day, ever since hostilities broke out between Kosovo and Serbia. How do you shape your identity when the world is collapsing? The director delivers an intelligent and sensitive exploration of this existential mystery.

The search for meaning and identity crises are also at the heart of A Girl Unknown, first feature film by director ZOU Jing -- the portrait of a young Chinese girl passed from family to family, from childhood to adolescence. Brilliantly constructed and meticulously directed, this film delicately examines the lasting scars of such trauma through three defining chapters in the heroine’s life. Starring Li Gengxi, revealed in Bi Gan’s Resurrection. And Franco-Irish documentarian Alexander Murphy offers a more light-hearted representation of family relations in his second feature film, Tin Castle. In a battered caravan by the side of the road lives the large, loving, and close-knit O’Reilly family, enjoying a happy life removed from the noise of society and its conventional norms. The full art of the chronicle as a sensitive and personal form of expression emerges from this moving ode to the Irish Traveller community and to alternative ways of life. 

Another wonderful encounter is that with Nora, the heroine of Viva, first feature film by Spanish director Aina Clotet (who also plays the lead role). In this bittersweet comedy set in a Catalonia suffering from extreme drought, a forty-year-old woman who has just recovered from breast cancer sees her libido surge. Volcanic and exhilarating, this film is fearless, not least in its portrayal of the transformations of the female body after illness and their impact on sexuality. While thousands of miles away, somewhere in Mexico, a young man delves back into his childhood memories to untangle their persistent mysteries, particularly those surrounding his father’s illness. The veil of memory is lifted as he interviews his mother. Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul, by Mexican director Bruno Santamaria Razo, bewitches through its deft shifts between reality and fiction, and its daring reinterpretation of the flashback. A striking hybrid that heightens the novelistic quality of this flamboyant first narrative film. 

Ava Cahen
Artistic director of La Semaine de la Critique