The fourth 2026 selection committee organised by Arte France Cinéma (headed up by Olivier Père) has opted to co-produce and pre-purchase three projects.

Standing out among these works is Spiritual World, which will be the 20th feature by Olivier Assayas, who’s been selected five times in competition in Cannes, four times in Venice (including last year via  The Wizard of the Kremlin) and once in Berlin. The all-star cast of his new opus includes US actress Kristen Stewart (who’s teaming up with the director for the third time), fellow American Riley Keough, Luxembourg’s Vicky Krieps, French actor Niels Schneider, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura and Germany’s Barbara Sukowa. The first of these will play a young, haunted clairvoyant who’s tormented by mysterious premonitions... Curiosa Films are producing the film, with shooting scheduled between February and April 2027 in France and Germany.

Arte France Cinéma will also support Falcon by Italian director Marco Bellocchio (selected eight times in competition in Cannes, most recently with Kidnapped, five times in Venice and twice in Berlin), which has just started shooting and will run until early December in Canada and Italy. Starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Alessio Del Mastro, Louis Garrel, Stefano Cassetti, Barbara Ronchi and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, the feature film takes us back to 2004 when Sergio Marchionne storms into Fiat to save a moribund empire. Ruthless and visionary, he decapitates the top management team, grooms John Elkann to take the helm and conquers the US by bending General Motors and Chrysler to his will… Production comes courtesy of Italy (Kavac Films, Emotion Network and Rai Cinema) and France (Ad Vitam Films).

Another selected project is France, toi, France (working title) by Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (selected five times in competition at Cannes, twice in Berlin and twice in Venice, bagging the Golden Lion for Faust). Produced by France (Loco Films) and Spain, the feature will focus on the last year of Charles de Gaulle’s life, spent in Colombey-Les-Deux-Eglises after his defeat in the 1969 referendum.

Arte France Cinéma will likewise back Chanson de nuit, the second feature by Brazilian director Maya Da-Rin after The Fever (which triumphed in Locarno). Produced by France (Still Moving), Brazil (Tamandua Vermelho, CinemaScopio and CUP Filmes) and Portugal (Uma Pedra No Sapato), the feature will immerse itself in the Guarani communities of south-west Brazil, in a region literally ravaged by soybean monocultures and the oppression of Indigenous peoples. Shooting will take place in November and December.

A debut feature film has also been selected for support: Aimé by French filmmaker Lolita Chammah, which she adapted from her novel, J’ai regardé la nuit tomber. This shiny-new director also leads the cast of her movie, alongside Jérémie Rénier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Élodie Bouchez and Jasmine Trinca. Co-written with Maud Ameline, the screenplay centres on Garance whose waters break at the start of her sixth month of pregnancy. It’s a drama of seismic proportions for this single mother who’s separated from the father of her future baby. She’s hospitalised and, a week later, she gives birth to an extremely premature baby… Filming will take place in Paris in January and then in spring 2027. Production is steered by Rectangle Productions together with Belgium’s Frakas Productions. Goodfellas will handle international sales, with the film’s release in France falling to Ad Vitam.

For the record, Arte France Cinéma is also supporting upcoming films by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Albert Serra, Kaouther Ben Hania, Diao Yinan, Bertrand Bonello, Mia Hansen-Løve, Kornél Mundruczó, Mikhaël Hers, Sergei Loznitsa, the Larrieu brothers, Hlynur Pálmason, Yann Gonzalez, Anne Fontaine, Élise Girard, Sébastien Lifshitz, Justyna Tafel, Chabname Zariab, Hu Wei, Vincent Le Port, Wesley Rodrigues, Masha Kondakova, Charlotte Le Bon, Philippe Lesage, Stéphanie Argerich, Kateryna Gornostai, Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Iryna Tsilyk, Jérémie Hoarau, Kira Kovalenko, Shengze Zhu, Stéphanie Argerich, Irina Tsilyk, Fabrice Lung-Vija and the duo Romain Renard and Fursy Teyssier.