2020 Editorial Editorial
Here we are on the eve of an improbable edition of the États généraux du film documentaire, and it should be said from the outset that we had imagined cancelling and putting off the event, as other festivals have done with justified reasons that we share. Faced with all the constraints to be taken into account, we could only renounce organising a festival in its usual form and with a wide audience, because we bear a responsibility and believe in things that the situation goes against: exchanging, talking, being present, meeting, screening films, in public spaces. The environment of the village of Lussas is one of the constitutive elements of the États généraux du film documentaire, also dubbed the “Lussas festival”. Working to organise a festival in our little commune in the Ardèche indeed creates a certain conviviality, but requires important capacities of organisation and coordination. Close links have been created over time and we take care to work with the municipality to delicately densify and transform our peaceful rural village into a studious and festive hub of documentary. Every festival has its specifics, its environment, partners, and staff, and it is all these factors that we have to maintain in a certain balance year after year. We thought for a long time, listening to all and with universal support, about the form that this particular edition of the thirty-second États généraux du film documentaire could take.
We quickly decided to put off those programmes requiring long preparation and involving the physical presence of collaborators and filmmakers from outside the country, and also 35mm or 16mm film projections, for which we hope to have the widest and most numerous audience possible. Then with the precious partnership proposed by the Tënk SVOD platform, we reconsidered our plans with our programming team, particularly Federico Rossin, with online screenings in mind; a special edition detailed in the following pages and inspired by our usual preoccupations: “Form histories”, “Touch ups and repairs”, “Unexpected news”. With the programmers of our “Viewing experiences” selection, Stéphane Bonnefoi and Adrien Faucheux, we soon tried to find a way to preserve the relationship with an audience, even minimally, and to save the very idea of a collective projection. Finally, the possibility of opening two screening rooms to a very limited audience encouraged us to set up screenings entitled “cinema in spite of everything”, with partner organisations in the area, at the same time as they are organised for small groups of spectators in Lussas in the presence of the filmmakers and programmers. After each screening, different groups can connect up with the artistic team and audience at Lussas to participate in a video conference debate on the film. This method concerns the “Viewing experiences” programme, and also the projections devoted this year to Tënk’s partners.
The current uncertainty did not allow us to organise the planned seminars but, keeping with the spirit, we did set up a group with a limited number of speakers to reflect on the transformations of our experiences as film spectators in a context of the increased digitisation of the cultural industry, particularly exacerbated these days: questioning our ways of viewing and the incidence modes of transmission have on our relationship with films and on the films themselves. We imagine continuing and broadening discussion on this theme next year. Just like the reflection starting out with the Lussas École documentaire, which will continue all year long – in celebration of its twentieth birthday, which will finally, in reality, take place in 2021. The subject under consideration: transmission at work with the strong point being to think the gesture of filming as a move to action.
Our uncertainties and concerns for the États généraux du film documentaire at Lussas this summer, caught up in the vast torments and movements of our world, bring us back to the humility and pretention necessary to come together through cinema. The films remind us to what extent life is fragile, luminous and harsh, made up of fortunate and unfortunate accidents, of taking risks and making commitments, in their image.
Pascale Paulat and Christophe Postic