10/10/2025 - Stéphane Demoustier will chair the jury of the competition at the 26th edition of the event, which will run from 7-16 November

The Arras Film Festival (headed up by Nadia Paschetto and Éric Miot) has unveiled the nine feature films, all as-yet unreleased in France, vying for the Golden Atlas to be handed out at the closing ceremony of the event’s 26th edition (7-16 November). The jury will be presided over by French filmmaker Stéphane Demoustier (whose latest film, The Great Arch [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stéphane Demoustier
film profile], was showcased in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and will be released in French cinemas in November). He will be joined by actor Louis Memmi, director Rachid Hami, and actresses Florence Loiret-Caille and Maud Wyler.

Dedicated to European cinema, the competition will pit nine features against one another, including three recently unveiled at Venice: Mother [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Teona Strugar Mitevska
film profile] by Macedonian director Teona Strugar Mitevska (premiered in Venice Orizzonti and winner of the Arras Days Pitching Award in 2022), Silent Rebellion [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Swiss filmmaker Marie-Elsa Sgualdo (world-premiered in Venezia Spotlight) and Made in EU [+see also:
film review
interview: Stephan Komandarev
film profile] by Bulgarian helmer Stephan Komandarev (also screened in Venezia Spotlight and a 2023 Arras Days pitching laureate).

Also on show will be Renovation [+see also:
film review
interview: Gabrielė Urbonaitė
film profile] by Lithuanian director Gabrielė Urbonaitė (unveiled in Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition), The Altar Boys by Poland’s Piotr Domalewski (Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Audience Award at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival), Una figlia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivano De Matteo
film profile] by Italian filmmaker Ivano De Matteo, Solitary by Irish director Eamonn Murphy (crowned Best Independent Film in his home country, at Galway), I Swear by Brit Kirk Jones (screened in Toronto Centrepiece) and L’Âge mûr by Belgian filmmaker Jean-Benoît Ugeux.

The rest of the sprawling line-up of the 26th Arras Film Festival (whose guest of honour will be actress Léa Drucker, who was on especially fine form this year in Case 137 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dominik Moll
film profile] and Adam’s Interest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Wandel
film profile]) will be detailed at a later date.

(Translated from French)