S.A.R.L.A.T. - Festival du Film

The 9-13 November saw the famous Festival du Film de Sarlat – a major event in the French cinematographic calendar that is now in its nineteenth year.  Although it seems a little odd that a four day festival packed with films, conferences, and seminars should come to such a small and relatively out of the way town as Sarlat, it actually makes sense as the Lycée in Sarlat (Lycée Pré de Cordy) specialises in film studies in the final year (Terminale) and students (including my neighbour – Julie) come from all around the region to study here. The festival was in fact created with pedagogical objectives in mind and gave the students of the collège and lycée in Sarlat an opportunity to watch films, meet production teams and hear the methods and madness of directors themselves.

The promo poster for the 19th Film Festival in Sarlat

 I had absolutely no idea just how busy the film festival was going to be – a bit of a major error when I rocked up on the opening night to find queues snaking down the street outside the cinema, in spite of the pouring rain. It was so funny to see what was usually a silent street now full of serious-looking intellectuals in parka jackets and shades lugging great camera bags and smoking. However, there were a lot of Sarladais out as well, and I bumped into more than a few familiar faces at the cinema during the few days of the festival. Most of the people there on the first night had turned out to watch the Cérémonie d’ouverture – in which a showing of Un balcon sur la mer was to be proceeded by a talk from the festival’s organisers and the director of the film herself, Nicole Garcia. I was actually there to watch another film, Mugabe et l’Africain Blanc and spent a great half-hour watching crowds pour in, followed by the director and actors being photographed and interviewed by the press before they entered. 

Mugabe et l'Africain Blanc by L. Bailey and A. Thompson

The opening film

Nicole Garcia - director(ess) of Un Balcon Sur la Mer [I SAW HER!!]

The following day, I attended on of the conferences for the lyceens in the Centre Culturelle de Sarlat. Entitled Les Cinéma’s d’Afrique: Histoire, Diversités, Ecritures and taken by Jean-Claude Rullier, it was essentially an introduction to the history and nature of African cinema. I was surprised at how similar academic studies of African cinema and African music are – with the study of both starting along colonial and then ethnographic lines. The lecture was punctuated with small excerpts from African films, and I definitely now need to watch the films of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene(Borom Sarret, Xala) as well as Tilai by Idrissa Ouedraogo. For more information, I recommend that you go to www.africanfilmlibrary.com , which is a lot more useful than my vague ramblings.

Finally, after choir practice on Wednesday evening, I went along to the showing of Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy – a film about the John Lennon, pre-Beatles. It was a good film, but didn’t have much to do with the Beatles, more about Lennon’s mixed-up family life (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Km9L1Sqd0.) Although, I never thought I would say this, it was actually so good to hear the Liverpudlian accent!

French poster for Nowhere Boy

Unfortunately, that was all I caught as I left Sarlat on the 11th to visit Bordeaux, but from what I saw, the Festival du Film de Sarlat is well worth a visit.  

PS Check out http://www.sudouest.fr/cinema/festival-du-film-de-sarlat/ to see all the press coverage. SUCH a media stir!