Baudry's 'De Gaulle' Dominates 30 Years of American French Film Festival

Antonin Baudry's two-part historical saga De Gaulle walked away with the top audience prize at this year's American French Film Festival in Los Angeles — a milestone moment for the fest, which just hit its 30th anniversary. The back-to-back Saturday screening drew packed houses, connecting with viewers in a way that clearly resonated.

The dual narrative centers on the French general (Simon Abkarian) with Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) anchoring the British side of the story. It's an ambitious approach to a pivotal historical period, and splitting it across two parts gave audiences a proper deep-dive into the era.

The festival itself brought serious numbers this year — 18,000 people showed up across the three-decade mark, proving there's still appetite for European cinema and prestige historical drama. In a landscape where streaming and franchise filmmaking dominate, a crowd like that standing up for something like this still means something.

Baudry's win is a signal that there's space for thoughtful, scale-demanding cinema when it connects. Whether De Gaulle finds that same audience beyond the festival circuit is the real question.

Read the full story at Variety → https://variety.com/2026/film/global/de-gaulle-american-french-film-festival-30th-anniversary-1236943336/