Cycles

A crossroads of cultures, languages, and stories, the Mediterranean has always been a source of inspiration for cinema. Through this series of French films, we invite you to explore this multifaceted space, shaped by exchanges, migrations, and shared memories. From the shores of Southern Europe to those of North Africa and the Middle East, amidst heritage, tensions, and contemporary creations, cinema becomes a space for dialogue, echoing the Mediterranean cultural season and the artistic vitality of this shared space.

Painting, sculpture, photography or performance… art has always fascinated cinema, which explores its mysteries, passions and contradictions. Through this cycle, French cinema mirrors artistic creation, revealing both the works and the artists, their impulses, their doubts and their struggles. A sensitive and cinematic journey to the heart of the act of creating.

This series explores how French cinema addresses the question of identity. Through personal and social narratives, these films tackle universal themes such as origin, belonging, gender, and integration. Between tradition and transformation, they offer a sensitive perspective on the diversity of experiences in France today.

Immerse yourself in the venomous and hushed universe of Claude Chabrol, master of the French psychological thriller, by programming four of his most famous films! Behind the calm facades of the province or the established bourgeoisie, he reveals the impulses, frustrations and violence that smolder under the social veneer. Murders, secrets, moral hypocrisy: in Chabrol, crime is never gratuitous, it is the symptom of a deeper malaise.

Through this series, we propose to explore the many facets of human rights in cinema. From the fight against discrimination to the struggles for justice, including the defense of fundamental freedoms and human dignity, these works question our society and its contradictions.

From the very beginning of cinema, women have been writing, directing and producing films. From documentary to fiction, from short to full-length, they have invented forms and narratives; their artistic legitimacy is undeniable, their contribution to cinema is immense. They are, however, the great forgotten ones in the history of the 7th art; The French Institute has brought together in this programme the most outstanding works of six French pioneers, offering them international recognition.

A major figure in French cinema, Agnès Varda built a unique, free-spirited, and profoundly human body of work at the crossroads of fiction and documentary. A photographer by training and a filmmaker by intuition, she constantly explored the world with curiosity, humor, and commitment. Her films give voice to the invisible, question time, places, bodies, and memories, while inventing new forms of storytelling.

This series shines a spotlight on an emerging generation asserting its identity and aspirations. Through a diversity of narratives and sensibilities, these films give voice to their stories, reveal their fresh perspectives, and unveil intimate, creative, fragile, and powerful journeys. This multifaceted youth questions its connection to the present, looks toward the future, and claims its place in a changing world. Between audacity, fragility, tenderness, anger, and enlightenment, "Us, Now" brings together works that affirm cinema as a space for expression, experimentation, and emancipation.

This series of French and African films offers an open perspective on the Francophonie as a space for encounters, creation, and exchange. A language of adoption for some, a language of heritage for others, French appears here as a tool of expression shaped by journeys of exile, cultural fusion, and transmission. These films also engage in dialogue with other art forms (song, theater, poetry, etc.) that enrich the narratives and extend the voices on screen. Through these works, the Francophonie is championed as much by those who reinvent it as by those who make it resonate beyond its borders.

On the occasion of the 48th edition of the Cinéma du Réel festival, which will be held at various venues in Paris from March 21st to 28th, discover a selection of African documentaries presented at previous editions.