Judges and Witnesses

Louis Mathieu, President of the Premiers Plans Association, will be highlighting the theme of the 2026 Festival through a series of film extracts. 

Trials and the world of justice are inseparable from the history of cinema... so much so that we can talk about a genre in its own right. From M to Anatomy of a Fall, not forgetting 12 Angry Men, The Truth, A Dry White Season, Bamako and The Traitor, the courtroom has often been a privileged setting in the 7^th art, fascinating filmmakers and always raising questions about the way in which they stage their films. 

The courtroom is obviously a place for dramatic art, eloquence and dramatisation... but beyond this question of representation, it offers a formidable field open to fiction, ambiguity and doubt... a unique opportunity to question the morality of the characters and to involve the spectator as witness... and juror!