Festival programming

It has become a habit, the Festival starts with a screening of a group of movies made by local filmmakers. The important role that REGARD had in provoking the birth of new generations of regional filmmakers is known. This year, in addition to presenting the latest regional productions, this privileged moment is reserved for the exclusive launch of a special project, VU PAR. In this series of short video portraits, seven (7) filmmakers, all really native and/or native in heart of Saguenay, are invited to take apersonal look at another filmmaker in a carte blanche of two (2) minutes. Some sortof friendly meeting between two familiar lens. Get to better know the ones that lefta mark on regional cinema and who actively participate to its development. Their movies travel all around the world. Their pictures are often shot here and can flow all over the globe.

Peter Volkart was born in Zurich (German-speaking part of Switzerland) in 1957 and is an experimental filmmaker and graphic artist. He studied graphic arts and cinema in New York. Some of his works have been displayed in Switzerland and in other countries. He works as an illustrator and independent filmmaker since 1990. He won the award for best Swiss short movie in 2006 for his movie Terra incognita, already acclaimed in several festivals. His movies are unclassifiable, there is nothing like them in term of imaginative power. His documentaries cover incongruous topics momentarily drawn from reality (as in Terra… where the physician Igor Leschenko questions the law of gravity) to end up in fiction. His fictions are filled with archival footage to best ground them into reality. He dearly enjoys working on Super 8 film, drawing entire segments of his sets, manipulating traditional tricks to confuse the viewer and himself. His film reconstructions are reminiscent of Woody Allenʼs Zelig. He is a pataphysician filmmaker at heart, the science of imaginary solutions as defined by its founder, AlfredJarry. This is most probably why Volkartʼs short movies are very popular at fantasy, horror and science-fiction.

Standing united with the Portuguese film making community suffering a deep crisis since last year, we are more than happy to offer this carte blanche to IndieLisboa Festival, which will present a program specially designed for REGARD: the short movies from five new generation Portuguese filmmakers for whom the Festival acted a spring board for international recognition. This is a program in which all the movies are a bit mad, but Portuguese film making is wild, full of temperament and new ideas. We are pleased to share with you this distinct cinematography and invite you all to this session, which will be followed by a lively discussion with Possidónio Cachapa.

The Arab Spring left permanent traces in the collective imagination of the world. Even though this revolution, far from over, managed to grab some sort of world wide support, it is nonetheless still hard to get rid of this narrow vision of war and terrorism conveyed by the medias and traditional television. However, beyond these stereotypes, Arab culture has way more to show, like its cinema. These filmmakers,during the screening, lift the veil on a modern and finely-crafted cinema. The quality of the movies is undeniable, their beauty and their softness, often deeply-moving. Movies completely contrary to the preconceived images and stereotypes fueled by too many Western “observers” facing the Islamic orient.

For some filmmakers more outraged than others, the end of the world lies in the heart of world populations that are fed up of being manipulated and poorly governed. Sick of the current system, of the control of information and of environmental degradation, these filmmakers are committed and express this excitement shared by more and more people world wide. They show us a more personal gaze on the various current issues and events and offer an alternative to the usual images of the small screen. Witnesses of a movement, of an event, of a protest or of the beginning of a revolution, these short movies document in their own way, the epoch, the era of time.

REGARD wishes to highlight, for a second time, the work of very promising young filmmakers, above and beyond the impact of the establishments. Transcending all the stereotypes of the exercise and of the “small school film”, their short films already distinguish themselves through a personal signature. These beginning film makers are already imposing their name, their writing and their own way of approaching the seventh art. We will probably revisit these short films with amazement when these anonymous directors will have made their mark with noticed feature films.