Maverick director Alain Guiraudie rarely makes concessions.

Through offbeat titles like 2013’s “Stranger by the Lake,” 2016’s “Staying Vertical” and 2022’s “Nobody’s Hero,” the French filmmaker has explored death and desire with an unflinching eye, offsetting social bemusement with an awe for nature. His work is defiant, queer, and idiosyncratic, which makes a recent bout of institutional support all the more surprising – especially to the auteur himself.

After launching out of at Cannes, Guiraudie’s latest film “Misericordia” – produced by Charles Gillibert’s CG Cinema and released in France by Les Films du Losange — then hit a fall festival grand slam, playing in Telluride, Toronto and New York before making the shortlist for France’s International Feature. Time will tell whether the newly revamped committee goes with Guiraudie’s psychosexual thriller over Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte’s “The Count of Monte Cristo...