14/04/2026 - The festival’s artistic director talks to us about the programme and its new features, as well as the importance of cinema as a means of exploring the world around us

(© Nikita Thevoz/Visions du Réel)

Emilie Bujès talks to us about the highlights and new features of the 57th edition of Visions du Réel (17–26 April). This edition will be Bujès’s last at the Nyon-based festival, as from 1 August 2026 she will take over as artistic director of the GIFF (Geneva International Film Festival), succeeding Anaïs Emery, who announced her departure in December 2025. In a statement released by the festival, Emilie Bujès reflects on her nine-year tenure as artistic director of Visions du Réel: “I am infinitely grateful for the freedom and trust with which I have been able to work, alongside a supportive board of directors and extremely motivated and dedicated teams.”

Cineuropa: This year’s Visions du Réel programme is very rich; how many films did you receive?
Emilie Bujès: Yes, we’ve actually received even more films than usual: around 3,700, compared to 3,000 in 2023. That’s a significant increase – encouraging, but also challenging to manage. In the end, we selected 128 films, whilst a total of 164 are being screened, including the retrospectives; that’s slightly more than usual, but we must also take into account the significant proportion of short films. The International Feature Film Competition comprises 13 films, of which only one is an international premiere, the rest being world premieres. It is a very strong and solid selection. This year we have 75 countries represented, a record. But it is interesting to note that the productions are often hybrid: a film may, for example, be officially French, but shot elsewhere by international filmmakers.

Speaking of the International Feature Film Competition, could you tell us about a few films in particular? Although I know it’s not easy to choose.
On the Swiss side, I would like to mention Dentro by Elsa Amiel, a highly poetic film that follows a director, Armando Puzo, as he works with inmates at Volterra prison in Tuscany. It is a film that is surprising, poetic and moving: the director seeks a cinematic form to convey an experience shaped by human encounters and theatre. Audiences will also be able to discover Jacqueline Zünd’s new film, Heat, shot in the Gulf states; it is a film that explores the extreme social contrasts in this region. Or Humboldt USA, by G. Anthony Svatek, which follows - in the form of an epistolary narrative - the footsteps of the naturalist on his journey through the United States in the early 19th century, with a rather personal dimension. I might also mention Saudades Eternas, by Emma Boccanfuso, shot amidst the chaos and violence of a Brazilian favela, centred on a rather matriarchal figure, in a joyful and intense, closed-door setting; or the Northern Irish film Magilligan, which follows a young man caught in a cycle of domestic violence and prison sentences that seems impossible to break. The director, Ross McClean, approaches his protagonist and his life story in a highly cinematic and sensitive manner, allowing him, in a sense, to escape social determinism.

Could you also tell us about the festival’s most experimental section, Burning Lights?
The Burning Lights competition is indeed dedicated to the most adventurous forms of filmmaking. This year, it consists exclusively of world premieres. Among the selected films are, for example, Alea Jacarandas, the new film by Hassen Ferhani, a renowned filmmaker with close ties to Visions du Réel; a Franco-Algerian co-production blending an intimate portrait with a meandering exploration of a country that has become a place of memory. We also have a highly original project entitled Don’t Tidy or Clean My Room, I Like It as It Is by Ignacio Ceroi, who continues work from a previous project centred on a cassette found in an old camera; this becomes the starting point for an investigation to track down the protagonists appearing on it. I would also like to mention the Vietnamese film Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava by Nông Nhật Quang, which explores the family and identity tensions of a queer filmmaker returning to his family.

The festival also seems to be opening up more and more to other art forms. Could you tell us more about that?
Yes, this openness and this multidisciplinary approach are very important to us. Cinema must not remain confined within rigid frameworks. In our programme, we include contemporary artists, animation, imagery from video games, and even works that utilise artificial intelligence. This year, some films directly explore these new technologies, raising fascinating questions about image-making today. Speaking of creative freedom, this year we have launched a new section called Borderlight, in which we will be screening fiction films that engage with reality or the cinema of the real in various ways.

What about the guests?
In recent years, we have had the pleasure of welcoming, among others, Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Alice Rohrwacher and Jia Zhang-ke. For this new edition, we will welcome Kelly Reichardt, as well as Sergei Loznitsa, Meriem Bennani and Laura Poitras. Through their films, or their artistic work more generally, each brings a powerful vision of cinema, and together they paint a clear and eclectic picture. Sergei Loznitsa, for example, draws heavily on archives and Soviet history. As for Meriem Bennani, her invitation is also linked to the Swiss premiere of her feature film Bouchra, co-directed with Orian Barki. This is part of the festival’s desire to open up the programme to other artistic practices. Finally, Laura Poitras will be present for the festival’s opening and during the VdR Industry events.

(Translated from French)