And here we are again for the 40th time! The European Short Film Festival Brest (Finistère), which has long followed the international short film festival Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), celebrates its anniversary from Tuesday, November 11 to Sunday 16 inclusive, at Quartz, in Brest (Finistère).
In the program, hundreds of films, “including 29 (of the 2,000 accepted) in European and French competitions, were directed by 69% women, a first! », as explained by Maïwenn Thomino, director of Côte Ouest, the association that organizes the event.
The female quartet leads
It was also a quartet of women who led this new anniversary edition: Marine Cam and Lucile Bourliaud on the program and Marine Cam, and Lucile Bourliaud and Anne Flageul, young audience session programmers… who represented no less than 10,000 schoolchildren during the week.
The Brest European Short Film Festival was created in 1985 by Olivier Bourbeillon – a director and producer from Brest, heading Paris-Brest Productions, who later joined forces with Gilbert Le Traon, who then headed the very young Côte Ouest association – to highlight the short form of the 7th art, which enjoyed particular success in Paris.
Since then, the festival has been held at Quartz, and supported by all regional institutions, as well as the Ministry of Culture and the CNC, as well as France Télévisions – which occupied two special nights and kept Breton cinema at the center of attention for these 40 years.
French people’s favorite Grolandais as president
“We are also happy to welcome the selected jury,” said the organizer with a smile. And how: French favorite Grolandais, director of a number of cult films (mostly with his sidekick Benoît Delépine) Gustave Kervern, who will head this year’s jury. A kind of return to the basics of Finistère since “Mords-les” or even “Fleur de tonnerre”, written with Stéphanie Pillonca.
Next to Kervern, we can find Stefan Crepon (especially seen in “Le Bureau des Légendes”), Jean-Baptiste Durand (César winner for his film “Chien de la Casse”), Louise Chevillotte (actress and director seen in “Les Hautes Herbes”) and Beatriz Coutrot, a casting director.
Note that Loïc Espuche, director of “Beurk,” nominated for the Césars and the Oscar for best animated short, will also be in the spotlight during the festival.
This year, pride of place will also be given to films shot and produced in Brittany or by Bretons – “Brittany is currently the leading region in filmmaking demand”.
