The official 2026 selection of Visions du Réel – around 160 films chosen from 3700 submissions – along with the festival’s guests, reflects a remarkable visual, formal and narrative vitality and resilience. A year on from the last edition, we are preparing the Festival in a global context that appears even more uncertain and troubled than in 2025. In the face of this disruptive energy, culture and cinema create essential spaces of resistance, sensitive and subjective expressions of multiple realities, to push back against the banal language of domination and to attempt to bring people and lives closer together.
Sections
International Feature Film Competition
The International Feature Film Competition brings together singular works from around the world that explore creative non-fiction cinema through personal and/or original perspectives. These films are driven by strong authorial visions and ambitious formal exploration.
Burning Lights Competition
Dedicated to the boldest forms of creative non-fiction, the Burning Lights Competition highlights works that probe and challenge the language, narrative structures, and aesthetics of contemporary cinema. It includes feature and medium-length films by filmmakers who dare to blur boundaries between genres, formats, or techniques, and who break free from established frameworks.
National Competition
The National Competition showcases the most striking works produced or co-produced in Switzerland. This section aims to promote the vitality and diversity of contemporary Swiss filmmaking. Open to feature and medium-length films, it focuses on works driven by a singular and strong vision, demonstrating a bold artistic freedom.
International Medium Length & Short Film Competition
The International Medium and Short Film Competition features shorter-format works selected for their artistic quality, formal originality, and cinematic uniqueness. Carried by emerging or established voices, these films reflect a diversity of strong perspectives within contemporary creative documentary.
Wide Angle
Grand Angle spotlights feature films that have already captivated audiences at other festivals or are expected to make a strong mark in the coming year. This competition celebrates a compelling form of creative documentary capable of forging an immediate connection with viewers, without ever compromising on the precision of the perspective nor the rigour of the cinematographic storytelling.
Opening Scenes
Open to first shorts or short films made within an academic context, Opening Scenes is a section dedicated to the next generation of international creative non-fiction filmmakers. It highlights promising works that are often bold and distinctive. Selected filmmakers present their films as part of the Festival’s official selection and also participate in the Opening Scenes Lab, a tailored professional program within VdR–Industry.
Highlights
Highlights is a non-competitive section of feature films in which audiences can discover the films that won over our programming team.
Borderlight
Borderlight is a non-competitive section of narrative feature films that draw on documentary approaches or maintain a fertile relationship with reality.
Special Screenings
A selection of films presented out of competition: works with specific formats, series, and tributes.
Doc Alliance Selection
A selection of films amongst the ones nominated by the seven Doc Alliance festival partners.
Thematic pathways
In order to provide various entry points into the rich spectrum of the programme, we have devised five thematic pathways. Discover them here!
Guests
Kelly Reichardt
Guest of Honour 2026
Visions du Réel welcomes Kelly Reichardt as Guest of Honour of its 57th edition. The filmmaker will take part in the Festival through a Masterclass, a Retrospective, a Carte blanche and a preview screening.
Sergei Loznitsa
Special Guest 2026
Visions du Réel is privileged and honoured to announce that the eminent Ukrainian filmmaker, Sergei Loznitsa, will be the Special Guest at the 57th edition of the Festival.
Focus 2026: Meriem Bennani
Visions du Réel is delighted to present a special focus on the Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani to mark the Swiss premiere of her film Bouchra, co-directed by Orian Barki.