37th edition
18-26 january 2025

The juries

The feature film jury, chaired by actress, screenwriter and filmmaker Nicole Garcia, includes director Anna Novion, actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz and director Boris Lojkine.

The short film jury is chaired by director Erwan Le Duc and includes actress Galatéa Bellugi and director Lisa Diaz

Feature films

© INA - Didier Allard

Nicole Garcia - Présidente

Actress, screenwriter, filmmaker

After an early career devoted to theater, Nicole Garcia first came to public attention in Que la fête commence (Let Joy Reign Supreme) by Bertrand Tavernier. She went on to play a number of striking roles, including in Laurent Heynemann’s La Question (The Question), Jacques Rivette’s Duelle, Philippe de Broca’s Le Cavaleur (Practice Makes Perfect), Alain Resnais’ Mon oncle d'Amérique (My American Uncle), Claude Lelouch’s Les Uns et les Autres (Bolero), Bertrand Blier’s Beau-père (Stepfather), Pierre Schoendoerffer’s L'Honneur d'un capitaine (A Captein’s Honour), José Pinheiro’s Les Mots pour le dire, Claude Sautet’s Garçon (Waiter!), Michel Deville’s Péril en la demeure (Death in a French Garden), Brigitte Rouan’s Outremer (Overseas), Claude Miller’s Betty Fischer et autres histoires (Betty Fischer and Other Stories) and La Petite Lily, and Claire Simon’s Gare du Nord

Behind the camera, Nicole Garcia has become an accomplished and recognised filmmaker. After the short film 15 août, she offered Nathalie Baye a role in Un week-end sur deux (Every Other Weekend), nominated for Best First Feature at the Césars and directed Le Fils préféré with Gérard Lanvin, who won the César for Best Actor, Bernard Giraudeau and Jean-Marc Barr, followed by Place Vendôme. For this role, Catherine Deneuve won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She successfully adapted Emmanuel Carrère in L'Adversaire (The Adversary), starring Daniel Auteuil. This film was presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. She returned to Cannes with Selon Charlie (According to Charlie), an ensemble comedy-drama starring Jean-Pierre Bacri, Benoît Magimel and Vincent Lindon. 

She gave an emotional evocation of the Algeria of her childhood in Un balcon sur la mer (A View of Love), starring Jean Dujardin, and wrote a luminous film about the weight of the past in Un beau dimanche (Going Away), starring Louise Bourgoin and Pierre Rochefort. She returned to the competition in Cannes with Mal de pierres (From the Land of the Moon) adapted from the novel by Milena Agus and starring Marion Cotillard. In her next film, Amants (Lovers), presented in Venice, she directed a love triangle in a thriller of feelings with Pierre Niney, Stacy Martin and Benoît Magimel.

At the same time, she has continued her acting career in films by Bruno Podalydès, Sébastien Lifshitz, Lucas Belvaux, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Safy Nebbou, Laurent Laffite, Mia Hansen-Løve and this year in Marcello mio by Christophe Honoré.

Anna Novion

Director, scriptwriter

Anna Novion is a French-Swedish director. She made three short films as part of her film studies at the University of Saint-Denis, Frédérique est française in 2001, Chansons entre deux in 2002 and On prend pas la mer quand on la connaît pas in 2005. She directed her first feature film, Les Grandes Personnes (Grown Ups), in 2007, starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Anaïs Demoustier. Selected for Critics’ Week, the film follows a father and daughter on holiday on a small Swedish island.  Her next film, Rendez-vous à Kiruna (Rendezvous in Kiruna) in 2013, a road movie in Scandinavia, is the portrait of a father mourning his son. Shot between France and Sweden, the film was awarded the Golden Pyramid at the Cairo Film Festival. More recently, Anna Novion directed several episodes of seasons 4 and 5 of Le Bureau des legends (The Bureau), Canal+’s hit series starring Mathieu Kassovitz, Sara Giraudeau and Florence Loiret Caille. Presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, her third feature film, Le Théorème de Marguerite (Marguerite’s Theorem), starring Julien Frison and Ella Rumpf, who won the César for Best Upcoming Actress, is an intimate study exploring to the heart of mathematical research. The film won the Audience Grand Prix at the Cabourg Festival. 

© Marta Bevacqua

Nadia Tereszkiewicz

Actress

Nadia Tereszkiewicz attended the Conservatoire du 8e arrondissement de Paris and the Cours Florent. In 2017 she played the lead character in Dennis Berry's Sauvages, followed by roles in Roschdy Zem's Persona non grata and Dominik Moll's thriller Seules les bêtes, which earned her a nomination at the César Revelations and the Best Actress award at the Tokyo Film Festival. She then went on to star in Thomas Vincent's series Possessions and appeared in the final season of Dix pour cent. In 2022, she appeared in Monia Chokri's comedy Babysitter, in Fabienne Berthaud's drama Tom, and in Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi's Les Amandiers, selected at Cannes and for which she won the César for Best New Actress in 2023. The same year, she starred in Mon crime by François Ozon, La Dernière Reine by Damien Ounouri and Adila Bendimerad and L'Île rouge by Robin Campillo. In 2024, she starred in Rosalie by Stéphanie Di Giusto, a free adaptation of the life of the famous nineteenth-century bearded lady. This year, she lent her voice to the main character in the animated film La Jeune Fille et les Paysans, then went on to work under the direction of Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, Alanté Kavaïté and Arnaud Desplechin. 

Boris Lojkine

Director, scriptwriter

Boris Lojkine, a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure with an agrégation in philosophy and a thesis on “Crisis and History”, decided to leave university after completing his thesis. He closed his books and left for Vietnam, where he had previously lived and learnt the language. He made two documentary films there, Ceux qui restent (Those Who Remain) in 2001 and Les Âmes errantes (Wandering Souls) in 2005, both of which give the Vietnamese side of the impossible mourning of men and women whose lives have been torn apart by war. With Hope (2014), his first feature film, he changed continents and delved into the world of African migrants. The script was read at Premiers Plans in 2012 and won the Audience Award. The film was presented at Critics’ Week in Cannes and received dozens of awards at international festivals, including 2 Valois at the Angoulême festival and the Audience Award at Premiers Plans. In 2019, his next film, Camille, won the Audience Award on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Festival, as well as the Valois and Lumière awards for Best Actress for Nina Meurisse. Presented at the 2024 Cannes Festival in the Un Certain Regard section, L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane’s Story) won the Fipresci International Critics Award, the Jury Prize and the Best Actor Award for Abou Sangare.

Short films

Erwan Le Duc - Président

Director, scriptwriter

Born in 1977, Erwan Le Duc spent a long time away from the cinema, working as a sports journalist and project manager for the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, before writing and directing four short films: Le Commissaire Perdrix ne fait pas le voyage pour rien, the script of which was read at Premiers Plans in 2011, Jamais jamais, Miaou Miaou Fourrure and Le Soldat vierge. His first feature film, Perdrix, a slapstick comedy starring Swann Arlaud, Maud Wyler and Fanny Ardant, will be released in 2019 after being presented at the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. He then directed the series Sous contrôle, created by Charly Delwart, which won an award at Séries Mania and is broadcast on Arte. Léa Drucker plays the role of an NGO director who is promoted to the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2023, his second feature, La Fille de son père (Her Father's Daughter), a gentle fantasy about filiation starring Céleste Brunnquell and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, closed the Semaine de la Critique. Last September, he returned to Arte with the series Le Monde n'existe pas, adapted from the novel by Fabrice Humbert, starring Niels Schneider in the role of a journalist investigating a crime in his native region.

© José Castellar

Galatéa Bellugi

Actress

As a child, Galatéa Bellugi joined Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil. In 2014, she starred in À 14 ans by Hélène Zimmer, in competition at Premiers Plans, and then alongside Kacey Mottet Klein in Guillaume Senez’s Keeper, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Premiers Plans. She then appeared in Katell Quillévéré's Réparer les vivants, Xavier Giannoli’s L’Apparition (The Apparition), for which she received a nomination for Best Emerging Actress, followed by Gabriele Salvatores's Le Garçon invisible : deuxième génération, Eva Ionesco’s Une jeunesse dorée (Golden Youth), Jean-Marie and Arnaud Larrieu’s Tralala, Carolina Cavalli’s Amanda and Jean-Baptiste Durand’s Chien de la casse (Junkyard Dog), which won the Audience Grand Prix at Premiers Plans. This film earned her a nomination for a César for Best Supporting Actress. In 2023, she appeared in Christine Dory’s La Fille d'Albino Rodrigue and Trȃn Anh Hùng’s La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Taste of Things), and the following year in Margherita Vicario’s Gloria! and Emmanuelle Belohradsky’s Elle & lui et le reste du monde (Her & Him and the Rest of the World). This year she will be appearing in Louise Hémon’s debut film L’Engloutie and Jérôme Bonnell’s new film Tout recommencera

Lisa Diaz

Director, scriptwriter

A director of short fiction films and documentaries, Lisa Diaz's films have been selected and won awards at a number of French and international festivals (Uppsala, Brest, Grenoble, Doclisboa, etc.). Her medium-length film Ce qu'il reste à finir was screened at Premiers Plans in 2012. She has taken part in a number of residencies, including Groupe Ouest (annual selection in 2008), La Fémis, the Lussas doc school, Boostcamp, etc. She also runs arts education workshops (including a feminist film workshop entitled ‘Paroles de filles’ with Passeurs d'images). In 2020, she is completing two new films, a medium-length feature, Eva voudrait (Audience Award at the Côté Court festival in Pantin) and a documentary, Avignon, un jour sans fin. Selected for the Ateliers d'Angers 2020, her first feature film, Libre Garance ! will be released in September 2022. It stars Azou Gardahaut-Petiteau and Jeanne Vallet de Villeneuve for the first time on screen, as well as Laetitia Dosch, Grégory Montel, Lolita Chammah and Simone Liberati. The film has been selected for Cannes Junior Screen 2022.