American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt will be the guest of honor at the 57th edition of the Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel, which will take place from April 17 to 26 in the city of Nyon. Although her work is firmly rooted in fiction, the festival notes that her filmography “flirts in many respects with the cinema of the real,” an affinity that fully justifies her recognition at one of Europe’s most prestigious documentary festivals.

Reichardt will take part in the festival with a masterclass and a comprehensive retrospective of her work. In addition, her latest feature film, The Mastermind, will screen at the festival ahead of its limited theatrical release in Switzerland.

Considered a key figure in contemporary independent cinema, the filmmaker will engage with a body of work described by the organizers as “bold, meticulous and radical,” marked by an aesthetic of refined simplicity, an observational gaze and a systematic rejection of spectacle. Her films, built on minimalist fiction, rely on everyday gestures, spaces and the passage of time to revisit major founding myths of the United States.

Born in Miami, Florida, Reichardt has maintained a close relationship with the green landscapes of Oregon since her second feature film, a territory from which she has developed a critical perspective on American myths and geographies. Over a career spanning more than 30 years, she has made nine feature films—including Meek’s Cutoff, First Cow and Certain Women—as well as several short films. Her work, developed outside the major Hollywood studios, stands out for its modest means and its inclination to revisit classic genres of American cinema, such as the western, the thriller, historical films and road movies. A focus on those left behind by the so-called American dream and its contemporary legacy runs as a common thread throughout her filmography.

The festival emphasizes that, despite its fictional nature, Reichardt’s cinema maintains a close relationship with the “cinema of the real” through a marked anti-sensationalism, economical production methods, narrative and formal restraint, and an in-depth engagement with filmed spaces. This is complemented by the extensive time devoted to location scouting, the adaptation of scripts to filming contexts and the immersion of film crews in the living conditions of the places portrayed—elements that together form a distinctive and singular cinematic method.

Emilie Bujès, artistic director of Visions du Réel, welcomed Reichardt’s participation, stating that “it is a tremendous privilege to welcome one of the great voices of contemporary cinema.” According to Bujès, “film after film, Kelly Reichardt sketches fragments of history and lives through remarkably refined and elegant narratives which, through their rejection of the spectacular and their sensitive attention to detail, reveal a fascinating relationship with reality.”

In previous editions, the Nyon festival has named figures such as Werner Herzog, Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Jia Zhang-ke, Marco Bellocchio, Claire Simon and Emmanuel Carrère as guests of honor. The full program of the 2026 edition of Visions du Réel will be unveiled on March 25.