Created in 1962 by the French Union of Film Critics as a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, La Semaine de la Critique focuses on discovering new talents, revealing first and second feature films. Such directors as Jacques Audiard, Alejandro González Iñarritu, Ken Loach, François Ozon, Wong Kar Wai or in more recent years César Augusto Acevedo, Julia Ducournau, David R. Mitchell, Santiago Mitre, Jeff Nichols or Rebecca Zlotowski were discovered by La Semaine de la Critique.
 
La Semaine de la Critique materialises each year its role as talent scouter in a selection of 10 short films and 10 feature films presented during the Cannes Film Festival. An international jury bestows two prizes each year: the Nespresso Grand Prize for feature films, as well as the Leica Cine Discovery Prize for short films. Our partners also give awards: the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, the SACD Award, the Canal+ Award for short film. The selected debut feature films also compete for the Caméra d’or.
 
Besides the venue in Cannes, La Semaine de la Critique’s scope of action includes accompanying the selected short film directors through Next Step. The directors attend a one week workshop in December, with the purpose of helping them step further towards feature film.