long live the short

The PIAFF team

As we launch this new edition of PIAFF, we are still inspired by the need and desire to highlight animated shorts. Because the short format allows us to develop a specific cinematographic language and offers a freedom that is all too rarely found in feature films, allowing extremely eclectic and singular authors to flourish far from the shackles of traditional storytelling. We believe it is vital to preserve, encourage and publicise this boldness in tone, writing, rhythm and formal choices, as a reminder that cinema as a whole can take many different paths.

A special evening with Vergine Keaton

With this in mind, it’s only natural that we should devote a special evening to the director Vergine Keaton, who is, if not the spearhead, at least one of the great exponents of this animation in perpetual research and mutation that we love so much. At this special screening, we’ll have the chance to see her short films again (Je criais contre la vie ou pour elle, Le Tigre de Tanzanie…), to discover the first previously unseen images from her feature film in preparation (Bataille) and to continue with a discussion in the company of the composer-producer-performer Vale Poher, with whom she has had the opportunity to collaborate.

The selections

As in previous years, the bulk of our programming is based around competitive sections (professional shorts, school films, experimental selection, horizons, music, young audience), bringing together recent films from all over the world and highlighting the extreme diversity of contemporary animated cinema.

In the ‘Professional Shorts’ competition, you’ll find such multi-award-winning films as 27 by Flora Ana Buda (Palme d’Or 2023), Portrait de famille by Léa Vidakovic, La Saison Pourpre by Clémence Bouchereau (winner of the Prix André Martin 2023), as well as works by filmmakers whose careers we are following, These include Sasha Svirsky, present with his latest film Le Maître des marécages (The Swamp Master), in which he takes on a Russian tyrant in order to speak more clearly about the current one, and Rachel Gutgarts, who is presenting her first film since leaving school, Via Dolorosa, a personal and burning look at Israeli youth.

From intimate dramas (Orage – Benoît Michelet, Ce qui bouge est vivant – Noémie Marsily, Herbe verte – Élise Augarten) to zany comedies (Nun or never – Heta Jäälinoja, Aaaah by Osman Cerfon ), from horror films (Le Cactus (O cacto) – Ricardo Kump) to films that question the world today (the reality of women in Iran

(Femme ( نژ) – Gilnaz Arzpeyma, Arash Akhgari; Notre uniforme – Yegane Moghaddam), the war in Ukraine (Marioupol, cent nuits – Sofiia Melnyk), the backtracking on abortion rights (Hemorragie – Ruth Hayes)… these are all the genres that are inviting themselves to PIAFF again this year.

More room for experimental cinema with 2 competition screenings

Since last year, PIAFF has been seeking to give experimental cinema more space, without confining it to a ghetto. It will therefore be present throughout the various sections, notably in the professional shorts competition with Notre douleur (Shunsaku Hayashi) and Que nos corps traversent (Geneviève Bélanger Genest), but also in a dedicated competition, which this year has a second screening. A journey to the frontiers of global experimental animation, with works by Max Hattler, Ana Vasof, Thorsten Fleisch, Siegfried A. fruhauf, Vera Sebert and Olivier Fouchard.

But also more films for young people

We’re delighted to be able to offer an extra screening for young audiences, as we feel it’s more important than ever to help them take their first steps in the world of cinema.

We’re delighted to be able to present the premiere of Marcel le père Noël (et le petit livreur de pizzas) by Julie Rembauville and Nicolas Bianco-Levrin, a medium-length film full of humour and poetry, firmly rooted in its time, with the voice of Reda Kateb and the wonderful soundtrack by Merlot and Cedryck Santens.

Filmmakers who target young people are aware that they are not evolving outside the world, and we are delighted to have discovered so many films that take children and teenagers seriously by talking to them about strong, topical subjects, such as Va-t’en, Alfred! (Célia Tisserant, Arnaud Demuynck), which deals with the difficulties of uprooting, Harvey by Janice Nadeau (about the death of a loved one), Mon nom est Edgar et j’ai une vache by Filip Diviak (about our eating habits) and Tufo by Victoria Musci, which deals with the Mafia. Of course, fantasy and poetry also have their place, with films such as Ana Morphose – Joao Rodrigues, Bouquet – Cécile Robineau or Carotte – a workshop film made by 12 children.

The rich Student Competition and the exciting Horizons Competition

The vitality of student films is once again confirmed, with a host of new talents to watch out for in the years to come, including Lili Tóth and the impressive Pipas, Róisín Sinai Kelly and the disturbing 2% Baby, and Arthur Jamain with the touching and intimate Cold Tobacco.

Hungary and Poland also continue to offer us talented female directors following in the footsteps of Marta Pajek, Reka Bucsi and Flora Ana Buda. From the incredible vision of Barbara Rupik’s De tels miracles arrivent (Takie cuda się zdarzają ) to the naïve, madcap aesthetic of Lili Bárány’s The Curse of the black rose and the gentle apocalyptic stroll of Olivia Rose’s Smell of the ground. There’s also the vitality of animated documentaries and experimental cinema, and some nice surprises from the United States, such as Mary: Through glass (Wyatt Cooper Carson) and Cow-girl (Flor Marmolejo).

In the Horizons Competition, we are delighted to be showing the international premiere of the new film by young Ukrainian director Anna Dudko: Mokosh. Continuing to follow the development of animation in India with Chautti chautti – Nicole Elsa Daniel. Take a look at Madagascar with Sitraka Randriamahaly’s satirical ‘La très (im)possible reconstruction’ and Tunisian experimental cinema with Wafa Lazhari’s A toi.

The importance of music at PIAFF

So as not to feel too heavy-hearted as this year’s festival drew to a close, we decided to close the festival with one of our most emblematic sessions, the Musiques competition, dedicated to music videos and other music films.

After listening to the sublime voice of Blixa Bargeld, lead singer of the group Einstürzende Neubauten, in the film Morning shadows by Rita Cruchinho Neves, which is presented in the professional shorts competition, spectators will be able to immerse themselves in a multitude of musical styles and genres, transforming the Studio des Ursulines into an ephemeral dancefloor.

The competition will feature filmmakers who have already competed at PIAFF, including Agnès Patron, who directed Météores with Morgane Le Péchon, with music by Pierre Oberkampf, Honami Yano, director of A Bite of Bone, who returns with a Jpop-style clip Harajyuku Boy, and Margot Reumont, who co-directed Espejo Cut Short Crisply with Claudia Cortès.

This musical journey will take us from South Korea to Brazil, via France, Italy and Germany… a great way to end this 2024 edition of PIAFF with a dance!

Giannalberto Bendazzi Prize: Mohammed Beyoud

The Giannalberto Bendazzi Prize Committee, made up of the 4 members of the PIAFF team, the first two winners of the prize: Marco de Blois and Nancy Denney-Phelps, and the director Florentine Grelier, has decided to award its prize this year to a personality who has not only promoted the art of animation but has also, thanks to his work, enabled a new emergence of animation cinema in his country.

We all know how important festivals are in highlighting cinema in general and animation in particular. It is thanks to them that new talented filmmakers are discovered every year, that demanding and often independent auteur films find their audience, and that new generations of spectators sharpen their eyes and their critical spirit.

We have chosen to pay tribute to a man who believes deeply in the importance of this transmission and who, for the past 23 years, has been working to bring the world’s animated films to a wide audience, offering the most emblematic contemporary films as well as older or more confidential cinema. Mohamed Beyoud sees animation as an art form without frontiers, and therefore for everyone, and has made FICAM, the Meknès International Animated Film Festival, of which he has been artistic director for 23 years, one of the world’s leading animation events.

With the incredible support of the Aïcha Foundation and the Institut français de Meknès, the Festival offers a programme that mixes content and refuses to make distinctions between styles or genres, putting all forms of animation on an equal footing. To mark the centenary of the birth of the great director Norman McLaren, the children of Meknes were able to see a short film by the man who remains one of the great masters of abstraction and experimentation, before each feature film. Over the years, festival-goers have also been able to meet Isao Takahata, Paul Driessen, Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier, Florence Miailhe, Peter Lord and so many other great names in picture-in-picture.

FICAM is also about opening up to a continent. From its very beginnings, the festival has welcomed leading figures in African animation such as Mustapha Alassane and Jean-Michel Kibushi. Director Sofia El Khyari presented several short films and an exhibition. And so it has gone on, year on year, reinforcing the desire not just to show films, but to foster vocations, encourage careers and support projects. A desire that has taken concrete form with the creation of the festival’s French-language residency, enabling a whole new generation of filmmakers to come to the fore.

It is this work that has led to a genuine revival of animation in Morocco today, with the emergence of both independent filmmakers and an industry represented today by several studios and local productions of series intended for national television channels. Mohamed Beyoud is obviously a stakeholder in these changes, taking part in numerous conferences and committees, and in a global reflection on how to better produce and promote animated films, but also by working in a very concrete way for cinema in general, as he did in fighting tenaciously to revive the magnificent Caméra cinema in Meknès.

Few people have contributed so much through their work to the development of animated film on a national – and continental – scale. It is therefore with great pleasure that the committee awards the Giannalberto Bendazzi 2024 Prize to Mohammed Beyoud.

the films