2020 Touch ups and repairs Touch ups and repairs
“Touch ups and repairs” stems from our “Fragment of a filmmaker’s work” programmes, which present all or part of a filmmaker’s work, depending on the number of films they have directed. Sometimes, it is truly a fragment, other times, a full retrospective.
We may choose to present the work of filmmakers who have passed away, but more often than not, we dedicate them to contemporary filmmakers who can present their work in person. The encounter with the audience is then centrally important, primarily because we give it importance through the time allowed for discussions and through the desire to focus these exchanges on questions of cinema. They are conceived less as lessons in cinema than as journeys alongside the filmmakers whose films we watch together, in their entirety, before talking about them and building a common reflection over the successive screenings.
Faithful relationships developed with certain programmers. In 2009, we programmed a “Fragment of a filmmaker’s work” dedicated to Peter Hutton. On that occasion, we asked Federico Rossin to host the programme. It was the beginning of a relationship involving regular collaborations, and of a new programming space, another form of cinema, which we liked to refer to as “a sensitive refuge”.
This year, as soon as we understood that it might not be possible for filmmakers to come to Lussas, and that this would entail the impossibility of a real encounter, we chose to reschedule the programmes we had in mind to next year and to imagine another echo for an online version. We revisited the “Fragment of a filmmaker’s work” programmes under the name “Touch ups and repairs”, in the way one touches up a painting or stitches up a costume, hence this title, which is a nod to a Boris Lehman film. Together, we have chosen six filmmakers. In some cases, we may show a film previously screened in Lussas, which will take on a whole new dimension today, in the turbulent times we are going through. In other cases, we present the filmmaker’s latest work. These films will unfortunately only be visible online – there will be no theatrical screenings – but the filmmakers understand the complexity of the situation and have generously agreed to be by our side in this form; it is a way for them to express their attachment to the États généraux du film documentaire, to our programming work and to our loyalty to their work.
Pascale Paulat, Christophe Postic, Federico Rossin
Programme only available on Tënk.