The Girl in the Snow by Louise Hémon, The Girls from Above by Bérangère Mc Neese, Little Jaffna by Lawrence Valin, Ghost Trail by Jonathan Millet, The Ice Tower by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Savages by Claude Barras, Close by Lukas Dhont, The Dreamer by Anaïs Tellenne, Junkyard Dog by Jean-Baptiste Durand, and A Tale of Love and Desire by Leyla Bouzid: there is no shortage of successes among the works that have gone through the writing coaching programme of the Groupe Ouest’s Annual Selection, Europe’s leading institution in this field, which has just unveiled the lucky few selected for its 2026 cohort.

Christophe Lemoine, the new head of the Annual Selection, highlights the strength and diversity of the eight chosen projects: “an incandescent intimate tragedy, a cruel family saga, a deadpan class struggle, a geopolitical fairy tale, an offbeat crime novel (…), from the gentrified beaches of Morocco to the neo-colonial tensions of Senegal, from the political dilemmas of rural France to the dizzying heights of patriarchy in the Romani community…”

Among the eight films selected for this new nine-month residency programme in Brittany (spanning three sessions from April to autumn), two third feature-length fiction projects stand out: Le soleil tombe sans un bruit by Belgian director Laura Wandel (who was highly acclaimed at Cannes, in the Un Certain Regard section in 2021 with Playground and as the opening film of Critics’ Week last year with Adam's Sake) and Magoa (pitched at Arras Days – read the report) by her compatriot Jean-Benoît Ugeux (who made his fiction debut with Maturity).

Three projects for second feature films have also been selected: Rien ne ressemble à maintenant by Léa Todorov (who made her mark in 2024 with Maria Montessori), Amour chèvre by Belgian director Valéry Carnoy (a highlight of the 2015 Directors’ Fortnight with Wild Foxes), and Monsieur le président by brothers Mathias and Colas Rifkiss (whose debut feature, La Petite Graine is set to be released in French cinemas on 15 April).

Finally, three debut feature film projects round off the 2026 cohort of the Annual Selection: Dans mon pays de tomates by Syrian (now Paris-based) director Diala Al Hindaoui (notably winner of the First Window Audience Award at Cinéma du réel in 2024 for the short film Fatmé), IMI by Ilias El Faris (noted for, among other works, the short film Sukar) and Diego by the duo Melissa Silveira - Tommy Baron (in the national competition this year at Clermont-Ferrand with the short film Curiosity on Planet Mars).

The list of projects:

Dans mon pays de tomates - Diala Al Hindaoui
Amour chèvre - Valéry Carnoy
IMI - Ilias El Faris
Monsieur le président - Mathias and Colas Rifkiss
Diego - Melissa Silveira - Tommy Baron
Rien ne ressemble à maintenant - Léa Todorov
Magoa - Jean-Benoît Ugeux
Le soleil tombe sans un bruit - Laura Wandel