FRANCO FILM FESTIVAL 2026

What connects these films that come from six different countries and as many genres isn't only a shared language, it's a shared instinct, and a shared question that unites us all.

Every system that appears in this program is built to process people efficiently: a hospital's visiting hours, a court's custody ruling, an immigration ministry, a police department investigating itself, a war that turns children into soldiers. And in every film, someone refuses to be processed. They stay past the point where staying makes sense. They hold a chair, a room, a door, a promise open for someone the paperwork has already written off. 

That's not a coincidence of programming, it's close to a definition of what “care” actually is. Not a feeling, but a decision remade every day it would be easier not to make it, by a nurse, a pastor, a brother, an aging machine, a mother who is also a cop. 

These are stories about people choosing to be responsible for someone the world has decided isn't their responsibility, the oldest, least glamorous form of heroism there is.