Some might think that everything has already been said. But the ways of exploring things are infinite, in brand new ways during these troubled times we’re going through. Regardless of context, the creative drive can’t be diminished or destroyed, and comes from the soul of the artist, whose thrive for expression is ongoing. It’s something these short films have in common. They are all part of our compelling selection, which we extended to ten films. They all deal with the imaginary of our era, despite the turmoil of current events. They record radiant or painful moments of a time in which everything is going too fast. They all take a singular and lucid look at things time has no control. They express the peculiar flavor of the temporary era we live in, in a bitter or sour way, a sweet or tasty way. From explosive energy to a more muted melancholy, from a bitter sense of humour to the tragic ordinary life, they all commit to give a passionate account of their anchoring in the present. And because we need to change the way we look at the world in order to change the world, these (male and female) directors are both witnesses and active participants a future which will be undoubtedly radiant if we believe in their tremendous talent.

From The Clash to New Order, the punk and its post-punk offsprings and New Wave can’t be separated from Olivier Assayas. He once said that « nothing could ever be the same » after discovering it, and music was the cause of his most intense artistic emotions, before films. The director conveyed this energy in his soundtracks, his passion for margins as well as the film selection from that era he curated for the fifib. Music is naturally what it’s all about here: Blondie, Patti Smith, les Ramones et les Talking Heads set the New York punk music scene on fire in The Blank Generation while on the other side of the ocean, a working class hero follows The Clash in Rude Boy. But a punk/new wave cinema isn’t a nostalgic jukebox, no matter how good the songs are. The same big-headed pride, the rage of existence, and the will to dismantle the system fuels Scorpio Rising’s ghost rider a decade earlier, or later on the soldiers in Contact or Videodrome’s sick television. In White Riot, the Clash were singing « “Are you taking over”/”or are you taking orders?”/”Are you going backwards”/”Or are you going forwards?” ».

What’s the link between terrorism and internet? How can immaterial beings trigger the end of the world? Is it possible to find true love while staying behind your computer? This year, First times, the section crafted for young festival-goers, explores the virtual world and its different aspects through a selection of indispensable movies (The Matrix, eXistenZ, Her) bold independent films (The Cat, the Reverend and the Slave, Hotel) and short film by promising French directors. Virtual will be a concrete reality during workshops around immersive film, interactive storytelling, digital creation and video game culture. From self branding to new intimate relationships, from video game to cyber-terrorism, from social network « friendships » to a new world conflict: between war and love, welcome in the other world!
 
Open to the public, this section is made especially for middle and high schoolers, and outside school time within the « Passeur d’images » framework.

Jean-François Rauger is the programing manager of the Cinémathèque Française and writes reviews in Le Monde. He’s also an relentless film smuggler, as enthusiastic about Jean Renoir and Claude Chabrol as he is about Anthony Mann and Charles Bronson. He’s passionate about classics as well as unknown and underestimated films. For this Red Night, he chose one of the best spaghetti westerns ever made, and that most people might not know:
Colorado
by Sergio Sollima (the other Italian Sergio beside Leone), which stand the comparison with Once upon a time in a west. Sensational, sarcastic and political at once, with a great performance from Lee Van Clef and a delightful soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

Since 2015, the FFF has started an exciting and difficult task: screen films that offer a different take on sexuality, while YouPorn, fashion and advertising build uniform desires. Its creators Anastasia Rachman et Maud Bambou dig in past, present and future films to find an often female, erotic cinema who mixes orgasms, thoughts and experiments. The fifib had to give them a carte blanche for this Pink Night.

 In addition to the different competitions, the fifib offers several premieres, whether they’re first films or works of more established filmmakers. Witness the first steps behind a camera of Morgan Simon or rap artists La Rumeur, or come see the new gems of Sebastien Betbeder, Olivier Assayas, Gilles Marchand, Sébastien Laudenbach and Albert Serra. Overall, these premieres offer a wide look at the state of contemporary cinema, which explores the streets (Les derniers parisiens, A Taste of Ink), remote areas (Voyage To Greenland), takes a fresh look at the past (The Death of Louis XIV) or a new take on ancient tales ( Into the Forest, The Girl Without Hands). 

Denis Côté is a Quebecois filmmaker born in 1973. Arnaud des Pallières is a French filmmaker born in 1961. Their work, praised by the press, is always on the lookout, using documentary and fiction, formal experiments and epic grandeur - screened at the festival, Boris Without Beatrice and Orphan belong to this latter dramatic style. In their own way, they both film the world in a way that re-enchant it, and find surprising truths. Côté likes to put up a smokescreen through minimalistic and yet intense effects: starting as a docudrama on euthanasia, Drifting States (2005) gradually shifted to the description of a village. Des Pallières’s poetic cinema refuses to connect the three parallel stories in Adieu (2004), unlike what we would expect according to the « conventions ». Which is why the fifib wanted to add up « Denis Côté + Arnaud des Pallières », knowing that the addition might turn into a multiplication or an equation with multiple unknowns. They each chose two of their film for the other to watch and start a discussion. We will assume the following bindings: Côté's Boris Without Beatrice and des Pallières’s Poussières d’Amérique both dismantle in their own way the Greek and American mythologies, through unsettling means. Côté’s Bestiaire and the second film directed by des Pallières (it’s a surprise!) are two scathing explorations of closed spaces, in which the audience won’t see animals with the same eye. « Sometime, I say that my next step might be to film a wall » (Côté). « I make films I can’t relate » (des Pallières). We’re eager to hear them discuss.

On the 8th of January 2016, the Algerian newspaper El Watan published a series of article about 50 promising Algerian personalities. Among them, Hassen Ferhani, who directed A Roundabout In My Head. Set in the slaughterhouses of the Ruisseau district in Algiers, it documents the gestures and the words of a youth who dreams of foreign lands and love. In France, a review published in L’Humanité Dimanche was entitled « Let poetry chop off ». This is the desire of the fifib towards young contemporary Algerian cinema: to screen films where poetry and artistic chop off, transcend the politics and the complex traditions in which they’ve been made - state support (the DFATIC, the film fundings from the Algerian Culture Minister), the work of local producers, foreign fundings like with the smuggler Samir in the Dust and its magnificent journey through rural Algeria. This breakthrough of a young Algerian cinema is also present in the beautiful Le jardin d’essai and in Algiers is Beautiful and All Is Well, shot without any authorization, through the panel of a car. Both films bear marks of how difficult it’s been to make them. A second motorized film is part of this selection, like a reverse-shot of Alger, après, its answer from the outside: Algier seen from Montréal la Blanche. Finally, Kindil is a remarkable genre film, both a powerful narrative based on mythology and a ferocious critic about violence against women. Let poetry chop off.

- Nathan Reneaud

The FIFIB CREATION is a forum centered around the film industry, dedicated to professionals and institutions, its key players who support its development, its creation and distribution. Dedicated to the stakes and future of art house cinema, the FIFIB CREATION is taking place throughout the whole duration of the festival.
This year, it is hosting conferences and workshops centered on international coproduction and soundtracking, advanced screenings as well as events about postproducing in Région Nouvelle Aquitaine organized by the regional agency ECLA.