Editorial by Nathanaël Coste

“I am very honored by Maxime and Sundari’s proposal to sponsor this 2026 edition of FIFES. It’s a festival that I’ve been following since its inception, and whose social usefulness no longer needs to be demonstrated.”

As a documentary filmmaker myself, I have observed that several festivals dedicated to ecology and human societies have ceased to exist over the past 6 years. The commitment required to bring this type of event to life and give it international exposure is immense. Here in Cannes, the FIFES helps to establish these themes, which have tended to disappear from the media spotlight in recent years. It also helps to forge links between local players and involve schoolchildren in film-making… A real local social gas pedal!

In presenting my documentary The Boxer Theory to the festival in 2024, I was able to appreciate the profoundly human and generous aspect of this event and of those who bring it to life. The encounters between filmmakers from several continents and the public around films that show beauty, complexity, fragility, resilience and struggles are a source of boundless wonder and inspiration.

At a time when our leaders are losing themselves in a quest for power made possible by digital technology, and are accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, we need spaces to decode, dream, connect and build utopias.

This year’s theme, biodiversity, is a fundamental entry point for understanding the world and working towards its regeneration. As Satish Kumar told us during the filming of In search of meaning The word ecology comes from the Greek and means “to know one’s house”. Economics, on the other hand, means ‘to manage one’s home’. Chairs in economics are being created everywhere, but rarely chairs in ecology, because how can we manage our house if we don’t know it? We’ve turned money, which is a means to an end, into an end in itself. In doing so, we’ve forgotten that money isn’t real – it can’t be eaten or drunk. The only tangible things that allow us to survive as a species are water, soil, ecosystems and human communities. This is our true wealth.

Because we need to recalibrate the compass of our priorities and realize where we’ve come from, we need documentary films that open us up to the complexity of the world and its beauty. The FIFES is one of the few places where we can think about the future of society in a simple, convivial way, while talking cinema!

Welcome.

Nathanaël Coste
Director, producer and broadcaster of impact films