Geneva Film Festival to honour director Mira Nair

Mira Nair will receive Geneva’s Prix Film & Beyond when the festival opens its 32nd edition on October 30. The Indian-American director, whose career includes a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival, will discuss her work with Vinzenz Hediger, director of the Cinémathèque Suisse. The conversation gives Geneva audiences a direct encounter with one of international cinema’s most recognised filmmakers.

Nair’s appearance forms part of a programme that brings established figures, independent creators and emerging film forms together in the city. The Geneva International Film Festival will run until November 8, with 113 works scheduled for screening. The organisers say more than two-thirds will be presented as Swiss, international or world premieres.

French screenwriter Fanny Herrero will also join the festival. Known for the series Dix Pour Cent, released internationally as Call My Agent!, and Drôle, Herrero will take part in a moderated discussion. The festival will screen works by Herrero, excerpts from them and the 2026 film sequel to Dix Pour Cent. Her participation broadens the programme beyond directors and reflects the growing attention paid to screenwriting as a defining force in contemporary television and film.

Fifteen Swiss works will sit within a 113-title programme designed to connect local filmmaking with international cinema. The festival’s Swiss presence includes the Geneva-based collective Exit Void, whose work spans short films, features and music videos. The collective is rooted primarily in the rap scene, bringing a music-driven independent perspective to a festival known for crossing boundaries between film, television and new media.

The programme also gives a prominent place to competition. Forty works will contend across feature films, series, immersive experiences and the Future is Sensible section. The categories reflect the changing ways audiences encounter stories, from traditional cinema screens to interactive and virtual reality projects.

One Swiss co-production will compete in the feature film section alongside nine other international works. Les Indes, directed by Pauline Julier and Nicolas Chapoulier, travels back to the 17th century. Its story follows a young Spanish nobleman charged with delivering a portrait of the Infanta of Spain to the child Louis XIV. The historical adventure gives the Swiss selection a period setting and an international narrative scope.

Taiwanese cinema will provide this year’s major international focus outside the competitions. The selection moves across genres, formats and subjects, offering Geneva audiences a view of Taiwan’s film production through both conventional and immersive works.

The programme includes In the Mist, a 2020 short film by Tung-Yen Chou that explores personal sexuality. It also features Just for You, a 2025 virtual reality trilogy by Craig Quintero. Placing the two works in the same focus programme allows the festival to present Taiwanese cinema as a broad creative field rather than a single national style.

The emphasis on virtual reality also reinforces GIFF’s commitment to formats beyond the standard feature film. Immersive works will compete in their own section, alongside feature films, series and entries in Future is Sensible. For Swiss audiences, the Taiwanese focus offers a concentrated opportunity to encounter filmmakers and forms that rarely receive sustained attention in a general cinema programme. The selection sits alongside the festival’s wider effort to combine international premieres with independent work from Geneva and Switzerland.