Overview The American French Film Festival is a week of premieres of new French films and series at the Directors Guild of America's theater complex on Sunset Boulevard, and its 2024 opening night was Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, with Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Karla Sofía Gascón and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos on the carpet. More than 60 French productions - features, series, documentaries and shorts - compete for awards each November. The festival is run by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a partnership of the DGA, the Motion Picture Association, the Writers Guild of America West and SACEM, the French music-rights society. It began in 1997 as COLCOA, and by 2026 it had premiered more than 1,000 French films and series. On site Screenings run across the DGA complex through the week, with an Opening Night Gala, free Happy Hour Talks, and free screenings and panels. The program is cut into sections: animation, comedies, films directed by women, first features, LGBTQ+ stories and the year's official international Oscar entries. Its awards include the TAFFF Achievement Award, the FACF Award, an Audience Prize and an American Students Award. The festival's online TAFFF Library tracks more than 1,000 French films and series available in the U.S., over 300 of them festival premieres. Audience It is an industry house: members of the DGA, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA get in free, and the fund's board, Michael Mann and Taylor Hackford among them, stood on the 2024 carpet with Audiard. A second audience comes from the classroom. The festival runs free screenings for Southern California high school French students with ELMA, with titles going back to 2008, and invites their teachers to every screening of the week. Talent and Influencers Jodie Foster received the TAFFF Achievement Award in 2025, the year she starred in Rebecca Zlotowski's A Private Life, her first film performed entirely in French, and Richard Linklater received the FACF Award as Nouvelle Vague played the festival. Audiard received the Achievement Award in 2024. The 2024 week also brought Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière with The Count of Monte Cristo, Lisa Azuelos and Christine Angot. By 2026 the festival counted more than 100 women directors in its history, among them Tonie Marshall, Anne Fontaine and Maïmouna Doucouré. Brand presence In 2019 the festival thanked about 60 sponsors across six levels, from official sponsors such as Air Tahiti Nui, TV5Monde and Variety down to a community tier of local food and drink businesses. The high school program runs in partnership with ELMA, the European Languages and Movies in America group, with support from the Southern California chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French.