IFFD 2022

Pas le choix, A butterfly’s heart, The note, Bitva, Le dernier formulaire, Je suis si loin, Les chaussures de Louis, Tabou, A viagem de Icario, La saison des tourteaux, Jackpot, Sim Patia... Some random titles of the selections of this festival founded by Katia Martin-Maresco. This new edition says the durability, diversity and dimension.

From Canada to Australia, from Iran to the United States, from Japan to France, more than 2000 films of all formats were sent to the selectors. If this quantity always illustrates an attention to the singular other and the need as much as the necessity of different glances which are intended for him, it is above all a demanding and international festival. The quality of the proposals finally retained always refers to the pleasure of the canvas and allows the usual identifications of the cinema. Many of the fictions, shorts, documentaries or animation films in competition this year are signed, it is notable, by women directors. A welcome sign of the times.

Furthermore, it is important and gratifying to note that since the creation of this festival, now hosted in Lyon, the audience has diversified, well beyond the participation of high school students. The IFFD now reaches much further than the framework of its title.

In this context of uncertain times and forced egoism, I don't know if the place given to the other, to all the others, to our necessary diversity is a value. At the very least, filming our humanity as it is done here allows us to re-enchant living together or "care" as it is called today.

You will pass me the ease of the quotations, but it is possible to limit these few days of cinema with Frantz Fanon: "Man is a movement towards the world and his fellow man" and Georges Canguilhem: "Normality is only a value judgment".

Philippe Lefait, IFFD Patron