JCC 2026: the 37th Carthage Film Festival
12 to 19 December 2026 at the Cite de la Culture in Tunis. The festival turns 60. Here is what is confirmed, what is not yet, and where to find the rest.
The essentials in ten lines
- Dates: Saturday 12 to Saturday 19 December 2026, eight days.
- Venue: Cite de la Culture Chedly Klibi, Avenue Mohamed V, Tunis, with screenings in other halls of the capital and in the regions.
- Edition: the 37th. The festival was founded in 1966 and turns 60; it was biennial for half a century, which explains the gap between its age and its number.
- Director: filmmaker Mokhtar Ladjimi, appointed in June 2026, succeeds Tarak Ben Chaabane.
- Organiser: the National Centre for Cinema and Image (CNCI), under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
- Four official competitions: feature fiction, feature documentary, short film, Carthage Cine-Promesse.
- Announced parallel sections: Visions+ (first and second features, any origin), Cinema du Monde (out of competition), Carthage Pro (the Chabaka and Takmil workshops).
- Film submissions: closed on 22 September 2026 for the competitions, 5 October for Visions+, 10 October for Cinema du Monde.
- Not yet announced: the selection, the programme and showtimes, the opening film, the juries, the guest country, the tributes, ticketing.
- Tickets: at the last two editions, 5 to 6 dinars a screening, 3 dinars for students, with online sales opening two days before the opening ceremony.
The dates of the 37th edition
The Ministry of Cultural Affairs fixed the dates of the three Carthage festivals on 13 May 2026: the Carthage Music Days from 3 to 10 October, the Carthage Theatre Days from 21 to 28 November, and the Carthage Film Days from 12 to 19 December 2026.
The opening ceremony is held on Saturday 12 December at the Opera Theatre of the Cite de la Culture, the closing ceremony and the Tanit awards on Saturday 19 December. Screenings start the day after the opening and run every day from morning to night.
| Date | Step |
|---|---|
| 13 May 2026 | The ministry fixes the dates: 12 to 19 December |
| June 2026 | Mokhtar Ladjimi appointed director of the 37th edition |
| 4 August 2026 | Submissions open for the official competitions |
| 24 August 2026 | Call for the official poster design (CNCI), extended on 3 September |
| 22 September 2026 | Submissions close for the competitions, after an extension |
| 5 October 2026 | Submissions close for Visions+ |
| 10 October 2026 | Submissions close for Cinema du Monde |
| November 2026 | Expected: poster, selection, juries, guest country, tributes (not announced) |
| Early December 2026 | Expected: detailed programme and ticketing (not announced) |
| 12 December 2026 | Opening ceremony, Opera Theatre |
| 19 December 2026 | Closing ceremony and awards |
The 'expected' rows follow the calendar of the 2024 and 2025 editions; they are not announcements.
What is confirmed for 2026
The four official competitions return: feature fiction, feature documentary, short film, and Carthage Cine-Promesse, for film-school and young directors' films. They remain open to Arab and African films, under the rules published on jcc.tn.
Visions+ is an international competition for first and second features, fiction and docu-fiction, with no restriction of origin. Cinema du Monde shows films from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe out of competition. Carthage Pro brings together the Chabaka workshop, for projects in development, and Takmil, for films in post-production.
In August the CNCI launched a call for the official poster design, extended to 4 September at noon. The chosen poster had not been unveiled as of 12 October 2026.
What is not announced yet
As of 12 October 2026 the festival has published neither its selection, nor its programme, nor its showtimes. The opening film, the juries, the guest country, the tributes, the partner venues and the ticketing terms are unknown.
This is the usual timing. In 2025 the selection was presented in late November, the detailed programme in the first days of December, and the box office opened on 11 December, two days before the opening. We update this page and its four linked pages the day of each announcement.
60 years of JCC
The Carthage Film Days were born in 1966 from an idea of the critic Tahar Cheriaa, launched by Chedly Klibi, then Minister of Culture. It is the oldest film festival still running in Africa and the Arab world, three years older than FESPACO in Ouagadougou. Ousmane Sembene received the first Golden Tanit for Black Girl, and the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers was founded there in 1970.
For nearly fifty years the festival alternated with the Carthage Theatre Days, one year in two, before going annual in the mid-2010s. The gold, silver and bronze Tanits are named after the goddess of Carthage.
Around the JCC
The JCC close a busy quarter at the Cite de la Culture: the Carthage Music Days from 3 to 10 October, then the Carthage Theatre Days from 21 to 28 November 2026. The rest of the year, cinema releases are on our cinema page.
Get an email when tickets go on sale
One email when the JCC 2026 box office opens and one when the programme is published, nothing else.
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Updated on . Sources: jcc.tn, CNCI, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the 36th edition's communiques (December 2025), the Tunisian press (La Presse, Kapitalis, Tekiano, Business News). Each page is revised at every official announcement.