La Roche-sur-Yon celebrates the 17th edition of its International Festival, from October 12 to 18, 2026

From October 12 to 18, 2026, La Roche-sur-Yon will welcome the seventeenth edition of its International Film Festival. The programming promises a journey through world cinematographies, unreleased works, and encounters with artists. Nine feature films will compete in the international competition, while two focuses will honor women filmmakers. True to its taste for discovery, the festival will also give significant space to new talents and exchanges with the audience.

An edition focused on world cinemas

The festival will offer a program with multiple horizons, from British and Japanese films to works from China, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and the United States. This diversity will showcase varied sensitivities, narratives, and cinematic forms. The African continent will also be highlighted through a retrospective dedicated to filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, known notably for Timbuktu and Bamako. This focus on sometimes less visible works in usual circuits extends the spirit of curiosity that energizes the event in La Roche-sur-Yon.

An expanded international competition

The international competition will bring together nine films, compared to seven in the previous edition, thus offering a particularly dense panorama. Among the announced titles is Jupiter by Alexandre Smia, which imagines a political crisis on the brink of nuclear confrontation. Denis Ménochet portrays the president of the Republic, facing the threat of conflict with Russia. The film falls under the dystopia genre and places urgent decisions at the center of the narrative. This subject resonates with contemporary concerns, without the program forgoing genre diversity.

Another proposed film, Radio Bonheur by Valéry Rosier, will take the path of a gentler social comedy. Corine Masiero and Philippe Rebbot share the screen, both actors appreciated for their warm presence on screen. Their appearance is announced as one of the highlights of this edition, providing the audience with the chance to extend the discovery of the film through a meeting. The program will also feature Wild Horse Nine, directed by Martin McDonagh. Sam Rockwell, John Malkovich, and Steve Buscemi portray FBI agents sent to Chile just before the Pinochet coup. This story, set at a crucial historical moment, blends political intrigue with an auteur cinema perspective.

Discovering new voices and meeting artists

The sections New Waves and Perspectives will be dedicated to discovering emerging talents and unique approaches. They invite the exploration of less expected works, tracking the emergence of new perspectives and spotting forms that renew the language of cinema. In this spirit, the festival is not limited to film screenings: proximity to the audience is an essential part of its identity. Several filmmakers and personalities are expected to engage in discussions about their journeys and creations. Nicolas Pariser, Emmanuel Marre, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet are among the announced guests.

The presence of artists allows each film to be placed in its creation context, but also to hear the intentions that shaped it. Discussions with the audience can bring forth unexpected interpretations and extend the experience long after the screening. This focus on exchanges contributes to making the festival a lively event, where discovery is also built in the theater and through meetings. Previous editions have already offered filmmakers’ journeys and conversations about the seventh art, as evidenced by this interview with Charlotte Serrand on the occasion of the fifteenth edition. The sixteenth edition also highlighted the diversity of its programming, presented in this review of the International Festival of La Roche-sur-Yon in 2025.

Film festivals offer different gateways to works that can be hard to encounter elsewhere. In Paris, some retrospectives invite revisiting filmographies and movements, as told in this dive into the retrospectives of LEFFEST. Other events prioritize the exploration of unexpected forms, like this review of L’Étrange Festival. In Locarno, the selection also reveals new proposals, including several works presented in this overview of the Locarno Festival 2026. These cross perspectives highlight the richness of cinematic events and the interest in moving between their programming.

Women at the heart of the programming

The representation of women runs throughout the selection, where female and male filmmakers will be equally represented. Two focuses will provide particular emphasis on this commitment by showcasing the works of Argentine artist and filmmaker Maria Silvia Esteve and American editor, producer, and director Barbara Kopple. These trajectories open complementary perspectives on documentary and cinematic creation. Their films will be accompanied by time for dialogue with the audience, in a spirit of sharing rather than mere presentation. This will provide an opportunity to discuss artistic choices, working methods, and the subjects that traverse their works. This spotlight serves as a reminder that programming can also contribute to making diverse trajectories and voices visible.

The selection also boasts a strong taste for premieres, whether national or international. These screenings allow the discovery of films before their wider circulation and give the event a showcase dimension for unique works. Audience members will be able to consult detailed announcements on the festival’s website to prepare their journey among the screenings and meetings. The variety of offerings should encourage very different itineraries, depending on whether one prioritizes auteur cinema, political narratives, discoveries, or retrospectives. The complete program will specify the schedules and other practical information as they are published.