If war is a all-too-familiar reality, what can cinema do in the face of conflict? Tell stories, document events, bear witness – of course – but also bring our attention as closely as possible to those whose lives bear the scars of conflict. For this new edition of the international competition, ten films – six of which are directed by women – invite us to look at wars, revolutions, dictatorships and their legacies from the margins, the silences and the most intimate aspects of these events.
From Asia to the Middle East, from Africa to Latin America, this selection maps out a geography of conflicts where ‘big history’ constantly intrudes upon individual life stories. In Taiwan, Before the Bright Day captures an adolescence shaken by the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis; whilst in Afghanistan, No Good Men follows the only female camerawoman on the eve of the Taliban’s return. Two films caught between desires for emancipation and the threats of worlds in upheaval.
From Iran to Syria via Yemen, resistance and the power of speech lie at the heart of several stories. In Roya , an imprisoned teacher refuses to break her silence in the face of the confessions the authorities seek to force upon her. In Viendra la Révolution , Pegah Ahangarani weaves together personal archives and collective memory to retrace more than forty years of Iranian struggles. In The Other Side of the Sun , five survivors of the Syrian dictatorship return to Saidnaya prison to bear witness and reclaim .In *The Other Side of the Sun*, five survivors of the Syrian dictatorship return to Saidnaya prison to bear witness and reclaim their history.
Finally, The Station recounts the war from the perspective of women who are trying to preserve a space of freedom and resistance in the face of the violence of the conflict and patriarchy in a Yemen on the brink of chaos.
In Africa, conflicts are also explored through their legacies and the pain of the past. In Bangui, Congo Boy uses music as a means of survival and emancipation for a young refugee facing precarious circumstances. In Rwanda, Ben’imana explores the possibility of justice and reconciliation in the wake of the Tutsi genocide. Elsewhere, other films trace the thread of history to observe the marks it leaves on bodies and memories.
Cuerpo Celeste offers a tender portrayal of a teenage girl as Chile emerges from dictatorship, echoing her personal drama with that of a country in the midst of transition. Finally, Une vie manifeste traces the life of Michèle Firk, a free-spirited and committed figure whose life intertwined cinema with activism, from the Algerian War to the guerrilla conflicts in Guatemala, via the Cuban Revolution.
This 2026 selection reflects the diversity of perspectives and narratives on offer this year: women who film, resist, bear witness or question history.
Enjoy the festival!
Hervé Bougon
Programmer
