Michel Franco named mentor-jury of Golden Apricot short film program

Just like last year, the Apricot Stone short film competition program of the 2026 Golden Apricot Yerevan Film Festival will be judged by a single person. While in 2025 that person was filmmaker Fred Kelemen, this time the role of mentor-jury will be assumed by renowned Mexican director and winner of the Un Certain Regard program’s top prize at Cannes, Michel Franco, the festival reported.

For more than a decade, Franco’s films have been sobering and shocking global audiences like an ice-cold shower. In the uncompromising and harsh screen reality created by the director, famous actors like Jessica Chastain, Tim Roth and others, are given the opportunities to present their talents under incredibly unusual lights.