For a week, Poitiers hosts the 44th edition of the Poitiers Film Festival, the international festival for film schools. 38 films are in competition from 28 schools around the world with, this year, a focus on Great Britain and a long-awaited retrospective of Nick Park, the author of Wallace and Gromit. The screenings are open to the public.
Do you know the National Film and Television School (NFTS) ? It is one of the largest film schools in Britain. The equivalent, in France, of Femis. The venerable institution saw the blossoming of the talents of Nick Park, the creator of Wallace et Gromit, or David Yates, the director of the adaptations of Harry Potter on the big screen. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the school is being honored through a focus devoted to it this year by the Poitiers Film Festival.
Since the beginning of the 90s, the festival (and before the Rencontres internationales Henri Langlois) has selected more than a hundred films from this school, 32 of which have received a prize!
If these two stars graduated from the NFTS will not be in Poitiers this year, the festival is organizing a retrospective of the work of Nick Park. Wallace et Gromit, Chicken Run and Cro Man will be visible on screens in Poitiers during the 2021 edition of the Poitiers Film Festival.
Since its creation, the Poitiers Film Festival has remained the international meeting place for film schools where young talents emerge who are called upon to develop in the film industry. The Poitevin public thus discovered the first steps behind the camera ofEmmanuelle Bercot, selected in 1997 for her school short film, Vacations, since noted by critics for The Girl from Brest, and this year, In his lifetime , with Catherine Deneuve and Benoit Magimel. The Israeli Nadav Lapid had also marked the festival with Road in 2005 or Emile’s girlfriend in 2006 before receiving the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2019 (our article on our blog) for his feature film Synonyms.
This year, a few names could well emerge in their turn. German Kevin Biele, director of Mona & Parviz could mark the spirits of Poitou with its film on a young German-Syrian couple surprised one morning by the unexpected visit of the German immigration services. Czech Anna Podskalská could also be noted for the stunning visual of her animated film Red Shoes (Red shoes), a subtle and diverted allusion to the tale by Cinderella.
The screenings are all open to the public. First screening of the official competition (see the program, here), this Saturday at 4 p.m. They continue throughout the week at TAP Théâtre (or TAP Castille) and are also visible online, on this link.
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