Julie Delpy, Valérie Donzelli and Yann Arthus-Bertrand will be on the bill at the Angoulême Film Festival

The festival will pay a warm tribute to actresses Micheline Presle and Anouk Aimée, who died in February and June respectively.

Julie Delpy’s return behind the camera, tributes to actresses Anouk Aimée and Micheline Presle, and a biopic on Sarah Bernhardt: the Angoulême Festival, which marks the return of French cinema at the end of August, unveiled its programme on Tuesday.

The jury for this 17th edition, from August 27 to September 1, will be chaired by British actress Kristin Scott Thomas. Journalist François Busnel, singer Imany and Moroccan director Maryam Touzani (The Blue of the Caftan) are among the personalities who will make up this jury, announced the co-founders of the festival, Dominique Besnehard and Marie-France Brière, during a press conference in Paris.

This festival, which highlights the 7th art of other French-speaking countries, will have Morocco as its guest country this year.

In total, eight films have been announced in competition, including The Trial of the Dog by actress and director Laetitia Dosch. It was presented out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palm Dog, rewarding the most outstanding dog in the selection.

The public will find the rapper and actor Sofiane Zermani (alias Fianso) and Clotilde Courau in a first film signed by the press officer Hassan Guerrar, Barbès, Little Algeria. The competition will also feature Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, who plays in A dream life by Morgan Simon. Two other films will join the competition in the coming weeks, announced Mr. Besnehard, specifying that “negotiations” were in progress.

The Barbarians by French actress and director Julie Delpy (2 Days in Paris, Le Skylab) will open with Guillaume Nicloux’s film Sarah Bernhardt the divinethe closure. Coincidence: the actors Sandrine Kiberlain and Laurent Lafitte are on the bill for these two feature films.

The documentary France, a love storyco-signed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, will also be on the trip. “A film about France which is suffering, but not only that, and which comes at just the right time“, stressed Dominique Besnehard.

Among the other films to discover, the new feature film from the director of Much Loved, Nabil Ayouch, Everybody loves Touda. Several of the films by this successful Moroccan director will be screened at the festival. This edition will offer an immersion into the work of director Valérie Donzelli (Love and Forests) and will present a preview of his documentary Conservatory Street.