Running 4-13 April, the programme of the 56th Visions du Réel features 154 films from a record 57 countries. Of the 129 new films presented, 88 are world premieres and a further 12 are international premieres. 58 debut films, including 28 first features, complete the picture with no fewer than 31 Swiss (co)productions (compared with 25 in 2024).
While the representation of women remains broadly similar (39%) compared to 2024, mixed-gender co-directions comprise 8% of the programme. Five per cent are made by non-binary filmmakers and 48% are from male filmmakers.
In addition to the three guest filmmakers already announced, namely Raoul Peck from Haiti, Corneliu Porumboiu from Romania and Cláudia Varejão from Portugal, Visions du Réel will welcome emerging and established talents throughout its ten days, as well as prestigious jury members.
The festival will open with the world premiere of the Swiss film Blame by Christian Frei.
The 2025 programme promises to be “a rich one,” write organisers, with a wide range of approaches, forms, countries and regions represented. The 129 new films, chosen from 3437 submissions, “testify to the great freedom enjoyed by non-fiction cinema today.”
Comments Emilie Bujès, artistic director: “I’m delighted to see that Visions du Réel is confirming its role as a talent scout and catalyst…This year’s edition is also an opportunity to reconnect with filmmakers who are dear to the Festival and whose careers we follow closely…We’re delighted that our selection once again reflects our openness to the world. The International Feature Film Competition includes films from Mongolia, Australia, Slovenia, Cameroon and Argentina. The Burning Lights competition is also conceived in the same spirit, with films hailing from China, Lebanon, Canada and Poland among others.”
No fewer than 57 countries are represented across all the sections, an all-time record that reflects the Festival’s international reach. “With their unique and original languages, the films in the 2025 edition investigate various ways of translating reality, defying categorisation and flirting with a very wide range of styles, registers and genres,” organisers add.
This year, Visions du Réel launches Next Gen, a label dedicated to young people aged 12 to 26: “With this programme, we want to help the next generation discover cinema and visual creation through a selection of films, workshops and meetings. We are convinced that an introduction to high-quality cinema from an early age can open people up to the world, helping to develop their creative and critical faculties. We would like to thank La Mobilière for demonstrating its trust in us by renewing our partnership for the next three years,” says Mélanie Courvoisier, administrative and operational director of the very full programme which offers new animation, sound, image and movement workshops for 4 to 10-year-olds under the VdR-Kids label, as well as half a dozen thematic walks to discuss the films with the production teams.
Guests of the 2025 edition
As previously announced, Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck will be the Guest of Honour at the 2025 Festival. He will receive the Prix d’Honneur on Monday 7 April, with a tribute by IDFA festival director and producer Orwa Nyrabia, prior to the screening of his latest film Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (presented in collaboration with trigon-film), and will be giving a masterclass on Tuesday afternoon 8 April, in conversation with French journalist Elisabeth Lequeret. At the same time, a retrospective of his documentary and hybrid work will be on show throughout the festival.
Special Guest 2025 filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu will be giving a masterclass on Saturday 5 April (in partnership with Arte), in conversation with Emmanuel Chicon, member of the selection committee, while all his feature-length films – major works presented at Cannes, Berlin and Locarno – will be screened during the Festival.
Finally, as part of its Atelier, Visions du Réel will welcome Portuguese filmmaker Cláudia Varejão, in collaboration with HEAD-Geneva. She will be taking part in a masterclass on Wednesday 9 April, in conversation with Rebecca de Pas, programmer at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and a close collaborator of Visions du Réel, while a retrospective of her oeuvre will be screened throughout the Festival.
Other prestigious guests at the 2025 event include British filmmaker and producer Asif Kapadia who will kick off the VdR-Industry days with a masterclass open to accredited members, and will introduce the screening of his film Amy (2015) on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. He will be joined by other renowned filmmakers and curators on the various juries, including American filmmaker Eliza Hittman, Greek filmmaker Athiná-Rachél Tsangári, Georgian filmmaker Elene Naveriani and Michael Stütz, co-director of film programming and head of the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival.
International Feature Film Competition
The Jury will award the competition prizes from the 14 films in selection, which include 13 world premieres and one international premiere, as well as four first feature-length films. In 2025, the jury will be composed of Hama Haruka, (director of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival), American filmmaker Eliza Hittman, whose film Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020 (and will be screened during Visions du Réel), and Greek filmmaker Athiná-Rachél Tsangári, whose work includes Harvest (Mostra de Venise, competition) and Chevalier (which will be screened during the Festival).
- Anamocot by Marie Voignier, Cameroon/France, 2025, 91’, World premiere
- Aurora by João Vieira Torres, Brazil/Portugal/France, 2025, 129’, World premiere
- Iron Winter by Kasimir Burgess, Australia/Mongolia, 2025, 90’, World premiere
- Little, Big, and Far by Jem Cohen, Austria/USA, 2025, 122’, International premiere
- La Montagne d’or by Roland Edzard, Belgium/France, 2025, 85’, World premiere
- Niñxs by Kani Lapuerta, Mexico/Germany, 2025, 86’, World premiere
- Obscure Night – “Ain’t I a Child“ by Sylvain George, Switzerland/France, 2025, 164’, World premiere
- Shifting Baselines by Julien Elie, Canada, 2025, 101’, World premiere
- Soldiers of Light by Julian Vogel and Johannes Büttner, Germany, 2025, 108’, World premiere
- The Attachment by Mamadou Khouma Gueye, Senegal/Belgium/France, 2025, 76’, World premiere
- The Mountain Won’t Move by Petra Seliškar, Slovenia/North Macedonia/France, 2025, 94’, World premiere
- The Prince Of Nanawa by Clarisa Navas, Argentina/Paraguay/Colombia/Germany, 2025, 212’, World premiere
- To Use a Mountain by Casey Carter, USA, 2025, 99’, World premiere
- Where Two Oceans Meet by Lulu Scott, France/Belgium/South Africa, 2025, 75’, World premiere
Burning Lights Competition
The Burning Lights Competition is dedicated to “new, free and contemporary forms and cinematographic narratives.” The Jury will award its prizes from the competition’s 15 world premieres, and is made up of American filmmaker Scott Cummings (whose 2024 Realm of Satan was launched at Sundance before being presented at VdR), French producer Thomas Hakim (recently involved in films by Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia), and Switzerland-based Georgian filmmaker Elene Naveriani (Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, Directors’ Fortnight 2023). Two Swiss productions or co-productions feature in the programme for this section: The World Upside Down by Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter and La Muraille by Callisto McNulty, while seven first films also feature in the selection.
- A Brief History of Chasing Storms by Curtis Miller, USA, 2025, 70’, World premiere
- And the Fish Fly Above our Heads de Dima El-Horr, Lebanon/France/Saudi Arabia, 2025, 70’, World premiere
- Chasing the Sun by Ruosong Huang, France/China, 2025, 112’, World premiere
- Croma by Manuel Abramovich, Argentina/Germany/Austria, 2025, 70’, World premiere
- Fierté nationale: de Jéricho vers Gaza by Sven Augustijnen, Belgium, 2025, 93’,World premiere
- J’ai perdu de vue le paysage by Sophie Bédard Marcotte, Canada, 2025, 85’, World premiere
- Je n’embrasse pas les images by Pascal Hamant, France, 2025, 76’, World premiere
- The Other World by Callisto McNulty, Switzerland/France, 2025, 65’, World premiere
- Les Recommencements by Vivianne Perelmuter and Isabelle Ingold, Belgium/France, 2025, 87’, World premiere
- Say Goodbye by Paloma López Carrillo, Mexico, 2025, 104’, World premiere
- The Big Chief by Tomasz Wolski, Poland/Netherlands/France, 2025, 86’, World premiere
- The Vanishing Point by Bani Khoshnoudi, Iran/USA/France, 2025, 103’, World premiere
- The World Upside Down by Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter,
- Argentina/Switzerland, 2025, 77’, World premiere
- To the West, in Zapata by David Bim, Cuba/Spain, 2025, 75’, World premiere
- Yrupé by Candela Sotos, Spain, 2025, 79’, World premiere
National Competition
Dedicated to feature-length and medium-length films produced or co-produced in Switzerland, the 2025 National Competition features 12 world premieres, including eight feature debuts, reflecting the “tremendous diversity, excellence and renewal of Swiss non-fiction production.” The jury for this section includes filmmaker and scriptwriter Elie Grappe, whose credits include Olga, (which represented Switzerland at the 2021 Oscars and will be screened during the Festival), academic and international distributor Petar Mitric and Iranian producer Elaheh Nobakht.
Comments Emilie Bujès: “With an eclectic and cinematographically impressive National Competition, Switzerland is confirming its excellence in non-fiction filmmaking, not only with names that are already well known and/or close to Visions du Réel, but also with younger filmmakers, including productions linked to Swiss film or art schools. With 31 (co)productions in all the Festival’s sections, Switzerland once again has an imposing presence at this year’s Festival, with films that range from the uniquely Swiss to more distant horizons.”
- Colostrum by Sayaka Mizuno, Switzerland, 2025, 75’, World premiere
- Fitting in de Fabienne Steiner, Switzerland, 2025, 85’, World premiere
- Fortune et Kevine by Sarah Imsand, Switzerland, 62’, World premiere
- Les Papas by David Maye, Switzerland, 73’, World premiere
- Les Vies d’Andrès by Baptiste Janon and Rémi Pons, Belgium/Switzerland, 92’, World premiere
- Lettres au Docteur L by Laurence Favre, Switzerland, 60’, World premiere
- Only Ghosts In the Waves by Alexander Tank and Tobias Scharnagl, Switzerland, 69’, World premiere
- Sediments by Laura Coppens, Switzerland, 81’, World premiere
- Song of Breath by Simona Canonica, Italy/Switzerland, 110’, World premiere
- Sons of Icarus by Daniel Jonas Kemény, Switzerland, 90’, World premiere
- Toute ma vie by Matias Carlier, Switzerland, 2025, 69’, World premiere
- Wider Than the Sky by Valerio Jalongo, Italy/Switzerland, 83’, World premiere
International Medium Length and Short Film Competition | Opening Scenes
Parallel to its three flagship competitions, the 56th edition will also be showcasing less conventional formats in its International Medium Length and Short Film Competition. “The shorter running times afford the filmmakers greater latitude, allowing them to venture into less well-defined, fuzzier territory, covering every possible universe and form – including animation, virtual worlds, archives, artificial intelligence, drones and fiction,” write organisers. The “invigorating” programme of 35 films including 31 world premieres and four
international premieres, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary cinema including Irish filmmaker Ross McClean, Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine), French artists Fleuryfontaine and Christopher Radcliff (USA).
The Opening Scenes section (details to follow) showcases promising young talent, both international and Swiss, with 15 titles including 12 world premieres, two international premieres and one European premiere.
Wide Angle | Highlights | Special Screenings
Including feature-length films competing for the CHF 10,000 Audience Award, presented by the City of Nyon, the films selected in the Wide Angle section – two world premieres, three international premieres and eight Swiss premieres in 2025 – have already won over audiences at other festivals, or are set to do so in the coming months. Alongside the opening film Blame by Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei, Rashid,l’enfant de Sinjarby Jasna Krajinovic, presented in world premiere, paints the portrait of a young Yazidi dreaming of a better future against a backdrop of fragile peace. Among the international premieres, The Family Approach by Daniel Abma, Puisque je suis née by Jawad Rhalib and Cutting Through Rocks by Mohammadreza Eyni and Sara Khaki, offer powerful portraits of foster children, young girls and women resisting the system imposed on them.
Highlights is a non-competitive section of feature-length works, that allow for the Festival audience to discover what the programming team considers to be must-see films. It includes two world premieres, one international premiere and 10 Swiss premieres. Opening with an excruciating video of a young Gambian drowning in Venice’s Grand Canal, La Dernière rive by Jean-François Ravagnan, transports us 4000 km away to listen to the family stories of the events leading up to the painful tragedy. Another world premiere, Petit Rempart by Eve Duchemin (L’Âge adulte, VdR 2012) paints an affectionate portrait of women housed in a Belgian emergency shelter, between precariousness and solidarity. This section also features some of the most respected names in contemporary cinema, including Albert Serra, Denis Côté, Alex Ross, Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens, Sammi Baloji, Ali Asgari and Charlie Shackleton.
The Special Screenings offer a selection of films presented out of competition: works in unusual formats, films directed by members of the official juries, series or tributes (in 2025, to the recently deceased Swiss filmmaker and first Maître du Réel at VdR: Richard Dindo). The section will welcome the return of Ekiem Barbier and Guilhem Causse – directors of the acclaimed Knit’s Island (VdR 2023) – with a new series shot within an online simulation, as well as My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow by Julia Loktev, an intimate and gripping portrait (lasting over five hours) of independent journalists in Russia who face persecution from Putin’s regime; and Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries by Martina Parenti and Massimo D’Anolfi, “esteemed” regulars at Visions du Réel.
