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The International Women's Film Festival opens Friday, March 22, at the Maison des Arts in Créteil, in the Paris region. 40 years after its creation in 1969, it proposes a program of 150 films, focused on the métissage, with the Martinican director Euzhan Palcy as guest of honor. Interview on this 4th edition with Jackie Buet, co-founder and director of the festival.
RFI: This year, the International Women's Film Festival competition brings together films from many continents : France, Hungary, Poland, Israel, Mexico, Vietnam ... Where are currently the most fertile lands for women's films?
Jackie Buet: In Poland, there is a great tradition of talented directors like Agnieszka Holland, who was last year scheduled in our festival. This year Magdalena Lazarkiewicz, with Back Home . Vietnam, with Ash Mayfair and The Third Wife , is still a small exception. And I am very happy to welcome a director from Reunion, with Fornacis , Aurélia Mengin, a young director, with her first feature film, a fantastic film. I am happy to be able to discover this director to the public of Créteil.
Why is this film " fantastic " in the double sense ?
He is fantastic because he does not tell a story. It's almost an inner world told in pictures. Like a poem, but very beautiful and very strong in terms of images. The film takes place in a region of Berry and the landscape is also a character. We dive into a dream. It's also fantastic because there is no beginning or end. It is an expansion of time and space.
To be selected at the festival, what does a director have to do, what kind of film does she have to make ?
There is no rule for selecting movies. But, it is true, at the level of the selection committee, we tend to retain films with a personal approach, original, not necessarily commercial, without entering the codes of "big show" or sensational film. On our side, there is really a focus on saying things in new ways and training ourselves to rare or taboo topics. For example, there is a very good film shot by a Mexican, Marta Hernaiz Pidal, shot in Bosnia, very original. The chaotic life of Nada Kadic is the story of a mother and her autistic daughter. It is a social subject and a film so beautiful that one can hardly believe that such stories do not meet more often in the cinema.
You only show women directors, the only film programmed and directed by a man dates from 1922. What is for you today the definition of a film of woman, knowing that the creations of transgender, third sex, etc.? are multiplying ... Otherwise formulated : from which moment a film is no longer a woman's film ?
It would almost have to change the logo of the festival and put Women's Movies, etc. It is true, dealing for example this year the theme of mixing, we have gladly expanded our programming about transgender, third sex, etc. We can reposition ourselves as a Women's Film Festival. There was an interest in the women directors. Today, major festivals need to look at the issue and balance their agenda. It's not won yet, but it's moving. So, in a way, we too will have to move. And that's it, the beautiful adventure.
The Festival was born 40 years ago in the aftermath of May 1968. Since then, what has changed in the age of feminism 3.0 ?
The cinema of women was born after 1968. In the period 1968, women rarely spoke publicly. They were there, they were activists, made and distributed leaflets, probably also cooking for the people who animated the debates. After 1968, they realized that they, too, had things to say. And, thanks to video, the language of the image has become something easy to practice. We have a very beautiful film about this story, Delphine and Carole, insoumuses , Callisto McNulty, a play on words "rebellious" and "muses". The muse that inspires creation. I think this legacy is a happy feminism. Feminism at once of claim, but also of well-being and to live differently. Today, in this more complicated period, at the economic level, women have to reposition themselves perhaps differently, with the new media, and to take a place, without missing the opportunity, because, at this moment, all is in the process of moving: in the media, in the media, in the concept of series on television ... Here too, it is necessary that women come forward.
In other festivals, we clearly see an evolution. In the competitions, there are now the number of films made by women. The Berlinale 2019 welcomed a rate of 41% of films made by women, in addition to a woman president and a golden bear honor awarded to Charlotte Rampling. But how can we measure progress in a festival where, since always, 100% of films are made by women ?
We must not forget: there is the party event of the festival for ten days, preceded by six months of prospecting, meetings, selection of films. And then, all year long, we work with young audiences and "disadvantaged" audiences. So, this cinema must meet all audiences. This is another part of our work that is not necessarily seen. But that is also what drives our approach. This work is not finished at all. The media are changing, the cinema is moving, the productions are moving too, so the festival will necessarily move too. And there is the new generation that will join our team, it's clear.
Last year, you had programmed Birds Are Singing in Kigali , Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krysztof Krauze. It was not a film by an African filmmaker, but about Africa. What place do African filmmakers occupy in your festival ?
There has been a lot of support for African filmmakers. This year, as the Pan-African Film Festival ( Fespaco ) celebrated its 50th birthday, everyone was in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Filmmakers like Senegalese Safi Faye and many others are personalities we love and have often been honored. This year we have a film about apartheid, Euzhan Palcy's film about apartheid, a tribute to Mandela and this struggle against apartheid. So, Africa is always at the heart of what we are saying.
Is the International Women's Film Festival scary for men?
I do not know what they would be afraid of, because they have everything to gain, too, so that society balances a little better. The world is changing and at the public level it has already changed.
► The 41st International Women's Film Festival of Créteil, from March 22 to 30, in Créteil