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The fifth edition will take place from September 10 to 14, 2025, with nearly 40 screenings organized indoors and outdoors at the Villa Medici!
Since its creation in 2021, the Villa Medici Film Festival has explored the links between cinema and contemporary art. Artists’ films, essays, fictions, documentaries, shorts, medium-length and feature-length films: the festival welcomes a diversity of narratives that question our relationship with images.
Program to come.
The Festival is divided into three sections: International Competition, Focus and Piazzale Evenings.
The International Competition
The International Competition presents twelve recent films of all genres and lengths. At the end of the festival week, two prizes are awarded by the jury at a ceremony attended by the public and artists: the Prix Villa Médicis for Best Film and the Prix du Jury.
Focus
Focus sessions feature screenings of out-of-competition films, as well as encounters. Proposed by the members of the jury, the Cartes blanches are an opportunity to share special moments around films linked to their activities as artists, filmmakers, authors or curators.
The Contrechamp sessions offer a dialogue between films, documentary or fictional, historical or contemporary, notably by Villa Medici artist-filmmakers.
Piazzale Evenings
Alongside the daytime screenings, festival-goers gather every evening on the Piazzale, in front of the historic façade of Villa Medici, for exceptional open-air screenings of recent films, including previews and restored classics.
Alain Guiraudie
Born in 1964, Alain Guiraudie is a filmmaker, photographer, and author. He grew up in Bournazel, a village in the Aveyron region, in a family of farmers. He made his first short film, Les héros sont immortels, in 1990, followed by two more shorts before moving on to feature films with Du soleil pour les gueux (2000) and Ce vieux rêve qui bouge (2001). Since then, he has directed seven feature films, including Stranger by the Lake, Staying Vertical, and Miséricorde (2024), his most recent work. Alongside his filmmaking, he also explores photography: in 2019, he presented his first photography exhibition as part of Panorama 21 at Le Fresnoy, and later exhibited at Galerie Crèvecœur in Paris, Buchholz in Berlin, and the Consortium in Dijon in 2023, as part of L’Almanach. He is also the author of three novels published by Éditions P.O.L: Ici commence la nuit (2014), Rabalaïre (2021), and Pour les siècles des siècles (2024).
Guslagie Malanda
Guslagie Malanda is an actress and curator. She gained recognition in 2014 in My Friend Victoria by Jean Paul Civeyrac, and later portrayed Laurence Coly in Saint Omer (2022) by Alice Diop (Silver Lion at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and France’s entry for the 2023 Oscars), a role for which she was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress. In 2024, she appears in The Beast by Bertrand Bonello, presented in the official competition at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, and will be part of the cast of Dossier 137, the upcoming film by Dominik Mollen, in official competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, scheduled for release in November. Alongside her acting career, she also works as a curator. Her project Messages personnels à Sarah Maldoror was presented at DOC in December 2021. In September 2024, she is organizing her first exhibition in Latin America, in Lima (Peru), titled Altamente sensible.
Anri Sala
Anri Sala is a visual artist. He creates works in which image, sound, and architecture interact to transform our perception of time and space. By disrupting the codes of language, music, and narrative, his work opens the way to new interpretations of history—more open and nuanced. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection (Paris, 2023), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Bregenz, 2021), Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern (Houston, 2021), Centro Botín (Santander, 2019), Mudam (Luxembourg, 2019), Castello di Rivoli (Turin, 2019), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City, 2017), the New Museum (New York, 2016), Haus der Kunst (Munich, 2014), Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2012), Serpentine Gallery (London, 2011), and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (Miami, 2008). He has also taken part in group exhibitions and major international events, including the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010), and the 4th Berlin Biennale (2006). In 2013, he represented France at the 55th Venice Biennale.
the team
The Selection Committee
Each year, a committee selects the films in competition with an approach that is as open as possible to the diversity of practices and creators, whether they are filmmakers, visual artists, or multidisciplinary artists.
For the 2025 edition of the festival, the selection committee is composed of Lili Hinstin, Clément Postec, Nicolas Raffin, and Valentine Umansky.
Lili Hinstin is a film programmer and artistic director. She was in charge of cinema at the Villa Medici from 2005 to 2009, a programmer for the Cinéma du Réel festival from 2010 to 2013, and then served as artistic director of the Belfort Film Festival (2013–2018) and the Locarno International Film Festival (2018–2020). She is currently Director of Programming at the Biarritz Film Festival – Nouvelles Vagues. She has been a member of the selection and organization committee of the Villa Medici Film Festival since 2021.
Clément Postec is an artistic director, exhibition curator, and filmmaker. A graduate of the Sorbonne Nouvelle University, the Institute of Political Studies of Strasbourg, and Sciences Po (SPEAP), he has been involved for over ten years in developing projects at the intersection of cinema and contemporary art, as well as in launching cultural spaces and organizations.
Nicolas Raffin is a London-based film programmer and head of the cinema department at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) since 2018. In recent years, he has launched major initiatives in response to the ever-evolving landscape of film exhibition, notably redefining the ICA’s cinema programming through new series such as Off-Circuit, Long Takes, and Celluloid Sunday. He has recently curated large-scale retrospectives dedicated to Marguerite Duras, Hong Sangsoo, and Jacques Rivette.
Valentine Umansky is a curator at Tate Modern in London, after having worked with several institutions dedicated to the visual arts. Between 2015 and 2020, she held positions in the United States at the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. She is also a curator and writer.
The Organizing Committee
Lili Hinstin, Director of Programming of the Biarritz Film Festival – Nouvelles Vagues
Mathilde Henrot, Programmer and Founder of Festival Scope Pro
Laurent Perreau, Author and Director
Sam Stourdzé, Director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
With the Villa Medici team
Fulvia Gallo, Coordinator of the Villa Medici Film Festival 2025
Clotilde Parlos, Cultural Projects Manager at the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
In collaboration with Véronique Terrier-Hermann, Art Historian, for the programming of the Focus section.
Practical information
Date: from September 10, to September 14, 2025
Single screening: 5€
Pass 3 screenings: 9€ (full price) / 6€ (reduced price)
Pass Festival Solo : 25€ (full price) / 20€ (reduced price)
Pass Festival Duo : 40€
Upcoming booking
Best practices to follow
The historic garden of the Villa Medici is a non-smoking heritage site.
We kindly ask that you respect this rule by using the designated smoking area and by properly sorting waste in the appropriate bins.
The Villa Medici does not have a cloakroom within its premises.
Motorcycle, bicycle and scooter helmets, backpacks, and pets are not permitted inside the establishment.
Attendance at Film Festival of Villa Medici is allowed with a small-sized bag.
