📷 Photo: IIP Photo Archive, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
VICTORIA, Seychelles — The second edition of the Festival du Cinema Francophone aux Seychelles is set to run on 5, 6 and 7 November 2026 in the capital, with the closing ceremony on the final day promising a showcase of award winning films on a big screen, followed by the official presentation of certificates and prizes.
The festival, organised under the auspices of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), builds on a first edition in 2025 that was won by the Seychellois filmmaker Johnny Volcere, who is now in the running for the international jury of the second edition. The OIF brings together 90 member states and governments and counts some 396 million French speakers worldwide, according to the OIF’s institutional profile, making it one of the largest cultural and political groupings in the world.
The international jury is being assembled continent by continent. This year, the presidency of the jury will be held by Madagascar, in the person of Edwella Ralaiaridimby, Director of the Centre Malgache du Cinema et de l’Image Animée, who works under the Ministry of Communication and Culture of the Republic of Madagasikara. Other confirmed members include Rudy Albina of the Atelier de Cinema des Antilles, founded by the Ligue de l’Enseignement de la Guadeloupe and the Mission Cinema Caraïbe; Sabine Monpierre of Canada’s Vues d’Afrique festival; Hiwot Asfaw Mekuria of Ethiopian Airlines; and Dominique Picardo of the Ligue de l’Enseignement de la Réunion. The European Union will be represented by Frederic Pfohl of Tropics Television and the Institut de Cinema des Tropiques. Geneviève Tongou Dempadi, a Chadian filmmaker with the Atelier de Cinema en Afrique, rounds out the international panel.
The competition is officially open. A first production from Gabon has already confirmed its participation, the feature film of Fabien Meye, with other works in development in Seychelles, Madagascar and the French Antilles. The submission window runs until 30 September 2026, with documentary and fiction entries up to 15 minutes in length accepted, the suggested theme this year being traditional games.
Entry is free of charge, and the format is simple. Films must be submitted in MPEG 4, accompanied by a 300 word synopsis and a biography of the director, sent via the Swiss based secure file transfer platform Tres Fichiers to three addresses at once: miera.savy@gov.sc, didier.mauro@yahoo.fr and oceans.televisions@yahoo.fr. The international jury will meet and deliberate remotely in October 2026 ahead of the November gathering.
The festival’s coordinating team has built a network of partners that includes the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Arts; Levantay; the Ligue de l’Enseignement des Seychelles; the Alliance française Seychelles network; the Embassy of France in Seychelles; Ethiopian Airlines; the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation; the Télévision Nationale Malgache; and a long list of teaching leagues and cinema institutes across the francophone world.
In June, a promotional call to films video was shot in Antananarivo by the jury president herself, with technical support from the Direction de l’Identité Culturelle malgache and the Ligue de l’Enseignement de Madagasikara Tsimialonjafy. The clip, currently in post production in the Malagasy capital, will travel alongside the festival this autumn and is intended to broaden the call for entries across the Indian Ocean region.
For Seychelles, the festival is part of a broader cultural push that has gained pace since the country’s return to the francophone cultural mainstream in the 2000s and the hosting of the Creole Festival in recent years. The November weekend is expected to draw filmmakers, jury members and cultural officials from across Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the wider Indian Ocean, with the closing ceremony scheduled for the evening of 7 November.
Sources cited: 1. Wikipedia, “Organisation internationale de la Francophonie”,
