Tribute to Frederick Wiseman

  • TRIBUTE

Tuesday 17 February 2026

The Festival d’Avignon pays tribute to Frederick Wiseman, American documentary filmmaker, who passed away at the age of 96 on 16 February 2026.

A major figure of contemporary cinema, Frederick Wiseman built, over nearly six decades, a vast body of work exploring in depth social life, institutions and human practices. Through an unadorned observational approach, without voice-over, without interviews, he shaped a cinema of reality which, through its subtlety, patience and awareness of the world, brings documentary images close to a form of poetic truth.

Welfare by Frederick Wiseman © DR

In 2023, the Festival had the honour of presenting an adaptation of his film Welfare, directed by Julie Deliquet in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des Papes. Frederick Wiseman was present among us, an attentive spectator of this theatrical transposition, and met the audience following the screening of the film as part of the Territoires cinématographiques. His discreet and precise presence gave that edition a rare moment of dialogue between cinema and theatre.

Frederick Wiseman was not only a filmmaker: he was an attentive witness, a demanding gaze upon humanity and the forms of power. To his family, his collaborators, and to all those who were touched by his films, the Festival d’Avignon expresses its deep gratitude