THE LIFE OF GHOSTS
The 3 Continents Festival today unveils the thematic programme for its 48th edition, to be held in Nantes from 20 to 28 November 2026: The Life of Ghosts.
Filming is always, in a way, a matter of bringing things back.
It is this idea that the Festival des 3 Continents has chosen to explore this year. From Tokyo to Dakar, from Hong Kong to the Amazon, this selection examines what ghosts reveal about our imaginations, our fears and our memories.
Acclaimed works such as Hideo NAKATA’s, Dark Water, Mati DIOP’s Atlantique and Hayao MIYAZAKI’s Spirited Away mark a journey in which ghosts constantly shift in nature: spirits, the missing, memories, traces or lingering presences.
“Ever since its inception, cinema has recorded bodies destined to disappear. It preserves gestures, faces and voices that continue to appear even as those who embodied them have grown old or died. Each shot thus contains a fascinating contradiction: it captures the living whilst transforming them into a trace, a deferred presence, an apparition.” Jérôme Baron, artistic director of the Festival des 3 Continents.
Through The Life of Ghosts, the Festival des 3 Continents invites us to reflect on this unique power of cinema: to give form to that which continues to haunt and challenge us.
Films in the programme:
Atlantique by Mati DIOP (Fiction · France, Senegal, Belgium · 2019 · 1h44)
Dark Water by Hideo NAKATA (Fiction · Japan · 2002 · 1h37)
The Witch’s Mirror by Chano URUETA (Fiction · Mexico · 1962 · 1h16)
Rouge Stanley KWAN (Fiction · Hong Kong · 1987 · 1h33)
Los Silencios Beatriz SEIGNER (Fiction · Colombia, Brazil, Peru · 2019 · 1h29)
Spirited Away by Hayao MIYAZAKI (Animation · Japan · 2002 · 2h05)
This programme will be expanded to include further films, which will be announced at our press conference on 30 October.
The public is invited to save the dates from 20 to 28 November 2026.
