AV News 194 - November 2013
Epinal International Festival
Ron Davies FRPS FIPF EFIAP FACI(M)
The 52nd Epinal Festival was held on the 20-21-22 September in a multiplex
cinema venue in the city for the second year running. The cinema 5 held over 80
and was full for each of the four sessions.
The pc was connected directly to the digital cinema projector (over 10,000
lumens!). The projected image filled the huge cinema screen, which, for some
sequences, showed up the shortage of pixels. Either that or the projector tried to
fill too large an area with too few pixels.
Unlike previous years the organisers had not requested FIAP patronage.
However, 130 sequences were entered and 65 had made it through
preselection. Nine of those selected were in the ‘Just a minute’ category, these
sequences were a minute long and had a variety of themes.
Among those 65 selected were ‘A Rich Legacy’ by Linda & Edgar Gibbs,
‘Fylde Folk’ by Julie England & Keith Storey, ‘Trekking in Nepal’ and ‘Arbre’ (Just
one minute) by Malcolm Imhoff, ‘Nant Gwrtheyrn’ and ‘Freeze Frame’ by Ron
Davies. The jury consisted of three experienced AV'ers, Romano Cigognani
(Italy), Christian Hendrickx (Belgium) and Maurice Ricou (France) and two
younger French jurors, Christophe Maulave and Cynthia Hamani, a journalist.
There was also a Young Jury of four first year students.
There were four sessions of competition together with a forum on the
Saturday afternoon which was dedicated to discussions on the theme ‘They
dared’. The five sequences that were shown at the forum had all dealt with
controversial subject matter and the authors had ‘dared’ Among the topics
discussed were - ‘What freedom does the AV'er have in choice of subject?’ And
‘What is acceptable to the audience?’
The Saturday evening was given over to a Gala Dinner and the declaration of
the Palmares (results) and showing of the first three sequences. It was very
interesting to see that the winning sequence ‘Aimer Une Femme’ by
Alessandro Benedetti (Italy) was based on a song by Bryan Adams ‘Love a
Woman’ from the film ‘Don Juan maestro d'amore’. This was a beautifully crafted
sequence with creative images. Surprisingly this sequence had not been
accepted in the Trophee de Paris in May.
The second placed sequence ‘Battre En Retraite’ by Jean- Yves Calvez
(France) was in B&W and portrayed old people in a home for the elderly.
Strangely enough this was the winning choice of the Young Jury. The third
placed sequence ‘Je’ by Frédéric Michel (France) has caused a few
discussions as to whether it is ‘soft porn’ or not but the French don't seem to
worry too much about the content.
As can be seen from the Palmares (full list on www.avnews.org.uk) the Brits
did quite well, with ‘Trekking in Nepal’ by Malcolm Imhoff gaining the ‘Best
Reportage’ Prize and my own ‘Freeze Frame’ the ‘Sponsor’s’ Prize I was
extremely surprised to receive the Audience Vote in Session 1. The French
usually vote for the French! More pleasing to me was that ‘Nant Gwrtheyrn’ was
requested by Claudine Durand, a Brittany born diaporamiste, to be shown in a
festival in Brittany next Spring, where there will be Breton speakers in the
audience.
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