2024: A singular edition
Dear friends,
Last May, we left you with a call for assistance, amidst uncertainty, but more importantly, amidst widespread mobilization on the part of our audiences, our partners and the entire film industry, which we once again want to thank you for.
So now, we want to reassure you once and for all in print that Yes, the 2024 Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival will take place.
Nevertheless, although the Festival will be held from 2nd through 10th February next year, it won’t be quite the same. In fact, the uncertainty surrounding our financial situation has not abated. The impact of the Covid year, the increase in costs due to inflation, and oftentimes precarious financing have left a lasting impact on our Festival, our organization and our teams, as they have on many other cultural enterprises and film festivals. So, in order to be able to welcome you into theaters next February, we had to make some choices. They were not easy; and we hope they are not permanent. We’ve been working on them since the spring, thinking about ways to make the 2024 edition possible while maintaining both its meaning and its essence. We hope the upcoming Festival, with its many differences, will only be a one-off, thanks to our efforts and those of our public and private partners.
But rest assured: our teams are at work, the films have been screened and our plans are in place. And the film world’s eagerness to bask in the sunshine of Clermont-Ferrand in February is greater than ever. The proof is that we registered over 9,400 films for 2024, which is a record number, and a very significant (+14%) increase over last year. Unequivocal proof that Clermont-Ferrand still attracts many many global artists, solidifying its place as the most important film festival dedicated to fostering international talent.
The modified program
For the first – and, we hope, only – time in its history, the Festival will be reducing the number of programs in its competitions. The National selection will go from twelve to ten programs, and the International from fourteen to twelve.
But make no mistake: reducing the number of films selected does not mean that their overall quality has declined; quite the opposite. Cinematic production has never flourished so abundantly, either nationally or internationally. Cinema’s heart has never stopped beating, and Clermont-Ferrand remains the lungs of the short form.
Therefore it is with great regret that we’ve had to take the necessary step of cutting four programs for 2024. We will make every effort to bring them back for 2025. Fewer programs means fewer films, which in turn means fewer filmmakers on hand to walk our streets, visit local businesses and theaters, meet our audiences who are passionate about the short form, and take advantage of the vast professional resources at the Short Film Market for finding distributors, producers and financiers for their upcoming projects.
All the same, we bet that fans of short film will find what they’re looking for in the nearly seventy programs screening in theaters, for all ages and tastes over the nine days of cinema and celebration.
A make-shift box office
These circumstances have also had an impact on our box office, which will still be open online; physical points of sale will also be available.
Given the global economic context, we’ve had to adjust our prices, but we’ve tried to have the smallest impact on our audiences.
Moving forward, single tickets will cost 4.50€ (rather than the 4€ they’ve cost since 2020), while the usual book of fifteen tickets will go up from 35 to 40€ (or 2.70€ per ticket), with the last change in price occurring in 2013.
Despite this adjustment, which we’ve tried to keep as small as possible, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival remains one the most reasonable local, national and international shows in terms of price and an affordable, public event.
Moreover, the tickets in the book of fifteen are not assigned, so you can always share them with your family and friends and go to any screening.*
* Excluding the Opening, Closing and Children’s screenings, which require special tickets.
© SQPLCM, Camille Dampierre
NEW PRICES
THE TICKET OFFICE OPENS: MONDAY 18th DECEMBER, 2023
Rethinking communication media
In 2014, the Festival began an online daily blog, La Brasserie du Court, a “logbook” that was updated constantly throughout the Festival, hosting written and video interviews with all the filmmakers who had a film in one of the year’s three official competitions. On the one hand, those valuable interviews were proof that the filmmakers really did attend the Festival, and they were also a means to dig deeper into the origins, production secrets and influences on their films. The articles became an indispensable resource over the years, produced by a team of editors, translators and video editors. For financial reasons, we’re putting the blog on hold for 2024, just before its tenth anniversary. We hope to be able to bring back the Brasserie du Court in the coming years. You will of course still be able to consult the interviews from previous years online.
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