American French Film Festival Turns 30 With 60 Titles

The American French Film Festival will mark its 30th anniversary by bringing 60 French films and series to Hollywood from Nov. 3-8, including five international Oscar contenders and new movies starring Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Camille Cottin.

The milestone edition, held at the Directors Guild of America Theater Complex in Los Angeles, will showcase 31 fiction features, 11 series, four documentaries and 14 shorts, with 58 titles competing for festival awards. Nearly half of the lineup arrives directly from this year's editions of Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno and Toronto. Nineteen titles will screen before their release in France.

Which Oscar contenders are coming to Los Angeles?

France's Oscar submission, Andrey Zvyagintsev's Cannes Grand Prize winner "Minotaur," will be among five films representing countries in the international feature race — all of them French co-productions. The selection underscores France's growing role as a production and financing hub for foreign auteurs.

The other four contenders are:

• Ryūsuke Hamaguchi's "All of a Sudden," representing Japan
• Lukas Dhont's "Coward," Belgium's submission
• Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner "Fjord," representing Romania
• Laïla Marrakchi's "Strawberries," Morocco's entry

Animation will have a significant presence. The opening-night film is "In Waves," directed by Phuong Mai Nguyen and presented with Netflix, alongside Louis Clichy's "Iron Boy," handled by Sony Pictures Classics, and Dimitri Planchon and Jean-Paul Gigne's "Blaise."

What are the headline premieres?

The festival will host the first U.S. screening of Antonin Baudry's "De Gaulle," a sprawling two-part biopic starring Simon Abkarian as the French general. The saga has thrived at the French box office despite its length and historical subject, and was shortlisted to represent France in the Oscar race. Baudry and Abkarian are expected to attend a back-to-back marathon screening on Nov. 7, ahead of the film's U.S. rollout through Samuel Goldwyn Films.

The program also includes the U.S. premiere of "All About Corinne," a comedy directed by Marc Fitoussi ("Call My Agent!") and starring Isabelle Huppert, and the North American premiere of Guillaume Canet's Cannes-premiering psychological thriller "Karma," starring Cotillard. Stéphane Brizé's Venice best screenplay winner "A Good Little Soldier" will receive its West Coast premiere, while Alexandre Smia's feature directing debut "Jupiter" will screen ahead of its French release.

This year's program reflects the festival's shift from spring to the heart of the fall awards season, allowing it to draw heavily from Cannes. Nineteen titles that bowed on the Croisette will travel to Los Angeles. Besides "Minotaur," "De Gaulle," "All of a Sudden," "Coward," "Fjord," "In Waves," "Iron Boy" and "Strawberries," Cannes alumni include Pierre Salvadori's festival opener "The Electric Kiss," Marie Kreutzer's Léa Seydoux starrer "Gentle Monster," Bertrand Mandico's "Roma Elastica," starring Cotillard and Noémie Merlant, and Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet's "A Woman's Life."

How has the festival built its role over 30 years?

The Franco-American Cultural Fund launched the festival nearly three decades ago as a bridge between the French industry and Hollywood. Since 1997, the organization says it has showcased more than 1,200 French films and series in Los Angeles and brought generations of French filmmakers, actors, writers, composers and producers before their U.S. counterparts.

"This year, there will be another spectacular selection and delegation to celebrate the 30th anniversary event at the Directors Guild of America, making TAFFF the second oldest film festival in the city of Angels," said Taylor Hackford, former DGA president and board member of the Franco-American Cultural Fund.

"For 30 years, The American French Film Festival has established itself as a leading and unmissable international platform on the global circuit for promoting French films and series," said François Truffart, the festival's executive producer and programmer since 2004.

Truffart pointed to the festival's history of following filmmakers from early shorts through awards recognition, launching a series competition alongside its movie program and championing female directors. TAFFF also works with U.S. distributors throughout the year to support French theatrical releases.

"It is truly an honor and privilege to see all of our efforts come to fruition and to introduce American audiences including guest members of the DGA, WGA, and this year, SAG-AFTRA, to an exclusive and diverse lineup, during the heart of awards season," he said.

What else is on the program?

The lighter side includes "Just an Illusion," the latest comedy from "The Intouchables" filmmakers Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, starring Cottin, and Nicolas Charlet and Bruno Lavaine's "The Better Me," with Laurent Lafitte in a dual role.

The festival will close with Anthony Marciano's "The American Dream," a comedy-drama starring Jean-Pascal Zadi and Raphaël Quenard. The film is inspired by French NBA agents Bouna Ndiaye and Jérémy Medjana, whose clients have included Victor Wembanyama, Rudy Gobert and Nicolas Batum.

Deputy festival director Anouchka van Riel described the broader selection as "a cinema of resistance," pointing to characters confronting corporate systems, online mobs and exploitative labor.

"Between those who fight and those who care, the lineup returns to one question: at a time when intelligence is becoming artificial, what remains human?" van Riel said. "These films answer with the things no machine has learned (yet): to refuse, and to care."

The festival's 30th edition closes Nov. 8 with its awards ceremony at the DGA — a finish timed, for the first full year, to the heart of the awards season the event now aims to serve.