In the mid-1960s, on the Côte d’Azur, specifically in Hyères, the International Festival du jeune cinéma takes place. The festival ended in the early 1980s and its history is now told through archive footage that shows the directors who passed through (from Akerman to Carax), the press, the chaotic audience. A portrait of a festival and of a cinephile culture. One of the directors was the Portuguese Rui Nogueira, who will be present at the second screening of the film.
Film festivals are like living beings and, inevitably, they are born, grow, are happy, reproduce, grow old and die. Some, for reasons of genetics or metabolism (read funding and cultural involvement), have a longer life expectancy, others, a shorter one. Yves-Marie Mahé tells us, exclusively from archival materials (news reports and films), the story of the Festival International du jeune cinéma, in Hyères, on the Côte d’Azur. In less than two decades, the event went from being a symbol of the effervescence of modern cinema (and of the engaged spectator) to artistic and cultural irrelevance. However, what happened there went down in history! A “different” way of watching and presenting cinema, which promoted encounters and debates (with the films, and with the audience). In Portuguese, the same could be done with the Figueira da Foz Film Festival, epicenter of a national cinephile movement that is now gone. It’s just a suggestion! (Ricardo Vieira Lisboa)
