Someone said recently that Visions du R\u00e9el is the Festival of spring. With the start of milder weather, a few flowers appear, bringing with them that indescribable feeling of jubilation that arises seemingly out of nowhere. It is bathed in this singular and lovely light that the Festival invariably takes place \u2013 the screenings, the debates they spark, the Place du R\u00e9el, and the simple joy of coming together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, of course, the Festival also reflects the world around it through its programming, positioning itself within this sometimes dissonant space where joy collides with challenging stories. 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 their lives closer together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The official 2026 selection of Visions du R\u00e9el \u2013 around 160 films chosen from 3700 submissions \u2013 as well as the festival\u2019s guests, attest to this visual, formal and narrative endurance and vitality. While rooted in fiction, Guest of Honour 2026 Kelly Reichardt<\/a>‘s oeuvre nevertheless flirts with cinematic reality in many respects. Through her attention to everyday gestures, places and marginalities, the North American filmmaker transforms fiction into a sensitive and ethical tool for observing the world. Alongside it, the work of Sergei Loznitsa<\/a>, Special Guest of this edition, reveals filmmaking of great formal rigour, often drawing on archives to examine post-Soviet history as it is being written and the traces it leaves in collective memory, while filmmaker Laura Poitras<\/a>, Guest of VdR\u2013Industry and the Opening Ceremony, investigates systems of oppression in the United States and offers a steadfast account of the upheavals shaping our societies. Finally, with visual artist and videographer Meriem Bennani, to whom the Festival dedicates a focus, references to globalised pop culture humorously intersect with North African history and imagination in hybrid installations and films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these approaches \u2013 among those that comprise the official selection \u2013 serve as a reminder that cinema is constructed from subtle or striking gestures, stories and visual adventures, so that in the darkness of the theatres, narratives intertwine and people connect, in the shadow of empathy and emotion. We look forward to the 2026 edition!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Philippe Bischof, President of Visions du R\u00e9el <\/em>
Emilie Buj\u00e8s, Artistic Director <\/em>
M\u00e9lanie Courvoisier, Administrative & Operational Director<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n