French Film Festival Returns This November for its 34th Edition

Running across more than 40 UK venues, this latest edition of the perennially much anticipated French Film Festival promises an array of treats for cinephiles and Francophiles alike.

This year’s festival opens at Filmhouse with Jean Paul Salomé’s The Money Maker (l’Affaire Bojarski), a thriller based on the true story of a master forger. The film’s inclusion marks the strong historical dimension of this year’s programme that was launched on 21^st October at Edinburgh’s French Institute. That particular group includes Coward (les Braves), A Man of his Time (Norte Salut) starring Swann  Arlaud, When the Night Falls (la Troisième Nuit) starring Daniel Auteil and Rays and Shadows (les Rayons et les Ombres) starring Jean Dujardin.

Of course the programme is wider than that, offering a showcase of highly anticipated films not least Amlie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s latest work Violette (Changer l’Eau des Fleurs) and a major non-musical adaptation of Hugo’s les Misérables starring Vincent Lindon and Camille Cottin. The Femmes First strand includes A Woman’s Life (La Vie d’une Femme) starring Léa Drucker, whose recent powerfully pertinent film Case 137 (Dossier 137) also features in the festival, and Women on Trial (l’Affaire Marie Claire) that revisits a landmark case over abortion rights in France.

Add to this a set of documentaries that includes an homage to cinema pioneers the Lumière brothers with Lumière the Adventure continues (Lumière, le cinema) from Thierry Frémaux.

Fifty years after his death, there is a tribute to Jean Gabin with 2 classics – Any Number Can Win (Mélodie en sous-sol) and Stormy Waters (Remorques) which links nicely to a new version of Maigret, a character Gabin had also played, with Maigret and the Dead Lover (Maigret et le Mort Amoureux) from Pascal Bonitzer.

Animation has 4 films under its banner and a fine array of films await to delight audiences along with special events and filmmaker appearances to be announced.  The festival also brings French language cinema into classrooms with its education programme across the UK.

Festival director Richard Mowe said “With the phenomenal success of the two De Gaulle films …French language cinema has been on a roll as never before over the last few months. Its richness, diversity and sheer originality is reflected in the official selection of the one and only French Film Festival UK which proudly is made in Scotland but shared across the nations. The films all speak for themselves: there is nothing left to say apart from our rallying cry over the decades: Vive le cinema!”

D’accord. Allons au cinema!

2026 dates:

6^th November to 14^th December 2026

Edinburgh venues:

Dominion cinema

Filmhouse

Edinburgh French Institute

McDonald Road Library

Full details at:

www.frenchfilmfestival.org.uk

Irene Brown