Unlike other showcases with a strong market component, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival does not require selected films to arrive as world premieres. That choice stems as much from allegiance to a devoted local audience that expects the best as from an understanding of wider industry dynamics.
“Our market also needs high standards,” says programmer and coordinator Julie Rousson. “For filmmakers, experiencing a short film screened in a packed, reactive hall is unique—it’s an industry moment and a public one, and that combination can only help filmmakers gain greater visibility and industry acclaim.”
Titles like Andrea Gatopoulos’s AI-assisted sci-fi freak-out “The Eggregores’ Theory” can first bank esteem across an international circuit in order to then hit the French festival of festivals – and its attending market – as an already hot proposition. And out of Clermont-Ferrand, a world of opportunity awaits.
Below are ten buzz titles reaching Clermont-Ferrand this year.
“A Move,” (Elahe Esmaili, UK, Iran)
Returning to her hometown of Mashhad after many years in the UK, filmmaker Elahe Esmaili finds herself no longer willing to wear a hijab – instigating a generational conflict set against Iran’s Woman-Life-Freedom protests. The doc won a Special Youth Jury Award at last year’s Visions du Reel and has remained a festival standout since.
“An Attempted Escape,” (Sébastien Betbeder, France)
Filmmaker and festival stalwart Sébastien Betbeder returns with a doc about an acting workshop run by French humorist Sébastien Chassagne and offered exclusively to prison inmates. Because the filmmaker couldn’t legally show the prisoners on-screen, he used an AI program to swap the inmates’ likenesses for more familiar celebrity faces – including Bill Murray.
“Apocalypse,” (Benoît Méry, France)
Over the course of 14 bruising minutes, director Benoît Méry immerses viewers into the mosh-pits and security perimeters of the Hellfest heavy metal festival, embedding right in the heart of the action with a non-judgmental eye and a taste for explosive visual spectacle.
“I Died in Irpin,” (Anastasiia Falileieva, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia)
Heralded in Annecy and winner of the top prize at the LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival, this autobiographical, mixed-media doc follows the Ukrainian filmmaker’s own tale of escape and survival. Unable to return to her hometown, Falileieva recreates an imaginary world based on memories and collage woven together to convey the chaos of war.
“La voix des sirens,” (Gianluigi Toccafondo, France, Italy)
Even those unfamiliar with this artist’s name certainly know his work designing the animated logo for Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions as well as the opening credits to last year’s “Gladiator II.” Painted on photograms and dialogue-free, Toccafondo’s latest film plays as a fairy tale about a voice more soft and seductive than any that had come before.
“Lees Waxul,” (Yoro Mbaye, Senegal, Belgium, France)
When a one-time fisherman finds a new gig selling day-old bread, he soon finds himself contending with his small village’s corrupt officials, two-bit gangsters and complicated blood ties. Acclaimed for his work in fiction and documentary, Senegalese filmmaker Yoro Mbaye has also produced features for Alain Gomis and Philippe Lacôte.
“Now, Hear Me Good,” (Dwayne LeBlanc, U.S.)
Director Dwayne LeBlanc follows up his much-heralded 2019 short “Civic” with an ode to the healing power of music. “Booker is far from home but close to friends and mentors as he hosts an exuberant party, but when the noise of the party dies down and the last guests go home, a listlessness returns to him,” reads the description. “Only the next morning, while playing his trumpet, does he find his place in the stillness of the soft early light.”
“Quota,” (Job, Joris & Marieke, Netherlands)
Directing trio Job Roggeveen, Joris Oprins and Marieke Blaauw – who together sign their films using first names only – follow up their 2015 Oscar-nominated short “A Single Life” and their 2019 Emmy winner “Kop Op” with a bite-sized short that satirizes sustainability reticence in less than three minutes. Carice van Houten voices a CO2 tracking app that tries, with no great success, to limit the carbon footprint of one particularly wasteful user.
“The Devil and the Bicycle,” (Sharon Hakim, Lebanon, France)
World premiering out of Clermont-Ferrand’s national competition, “The Devil and the Bicycle,” follows an adolescent girl raised in a mixed-faith household whose discovery of sensuality supersedes any kind of religious awakening. Festival programmers praised this 1990s-set film for its treatment of female emancipation and empowerment.
“What If They Bomb Here Tonight?” (Samir Syriani, Lebanon)
Shot this past September and prompted by this year’s Lebanon focus, Samir Syriani’s film will world premiere in Clermont-Ferrand’s international competition. The filmmaker and his real-life partner Nadyn Chalhoub play a Beirut couple waiting out an Israeli airstrike from inside their apartment, filling the lulls between bombs by imagining, “What if one fell on us right now?” Threading a barely-there line between fact and fiction, the narrative film builds on a very real threat facing the couple, both onscreen and off.
