Programme preview | 48th edition
Every year, Cinéma du réel welcomes filmmakers from all over the world who are making contemporary documentary films. The programme reflects formal developments and experiments in the documentary field in the context of the history of cinema. These rare and previously unseen films, which challenge us to consider the state of the world today, can be discovered in the cinemas of the Latin Quarter.
Luke Fowler
Rejecting historical, aesthetic, and narrative constraints, celebrating the margins with Luke Fowler.
Born in 1978, he is a central figure in the Glasgow art scene. A central part of his production focuses on the portrayal of radical figures, such as avant-garde composer and political activist Cornelius Cardew, psychiatrist R.D. Laing, and Marxist historian Edward Palmer Thompson.
Jumana Manna
What colonisation does to bodies and territories with Jumana Manna.
Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist. Her films explore how forms of power — economic, political, colonial — condition human and plant life, marking landscapes and bodies. Her cinema reveals the paradox between a reality in ruins and life that continues to regenerate.
The palestinian people and their resistance
In collaboration with Jumana Manna, a programme designed to help viewers ‘learn to see’ the Palestinian people and their resistance, and explore a part of their history.
Festival Conversations
In 2026, Festival Conversations #7 will focus on ecofeminism: an intersectional, decolonial, and anti-capitalist struggle. It will draw on the work of philosopher Emilie Hache (author of De la génération. Enquête sur sa disparition et son remplacement par la production), with the participation of film historians Teresa Castro and Becca Voelcker, among others.
A program of films – with Five Years Diaries by Anne-Charlotte Robertson and the Indian group Yugantar (Sudesha) and others – will echo Festival Conversations #7 focused on ecofeminist thought and action.
Competition
The festival features French premieres of the most outstanding international documentary productions as well as world premieres putting the spotlight on the French documentary scene. The selection will be unveiled on 10 February.
First window
A selection of filmmakers’ documentary debuts, in partnership with Mediapart, to sound out the future of documentary filmmaking.
Popular Front(s)
Popular Front(s) is a daily rendez-vous, every evening at 7:30pm, for a screening of a recent film – in some cases a world premiere – followed by a meeting with the director and a guest personality to provide festival-goers with food for thought on the form, the thinking behind the film and the relationship between cinema and our capacity for action.
With the conviction that cinema makes us clear-sighted, each year Popular Front(s) explores a part of our contemporary reality, our questioning, through films that bear witness to the activism of citizens and the filmmakers who capture them.
Special screenings
Opening and closing nights, sneak previews, French premieres of films acclaimed at A-list festivals, and other privileged encounters with both young and experienced filmmakers close to Cinéma du réel’s identity : every day, these special events bring audiences and filmmakers together and offer an exclusive chance to explore the most talked-about films of the moment.
And more…
Focus on participatory practices in cinema
Paris DOC, the festival’s industry platform