2018 retrospective: Face forward

There are any number of directors who have cut their teeth in the world of short films.

But it’s the actors who stand, belting, on the front lines of the seventh art, fearless and often unknown soldiers marching to the orders of script and director. From hesitant beginnings to thunderous returns, from vibrant homages to late bloomers, these “casting survivors”, are now familiar faces, some of them even giants of cinema.

There are those we glimpsed once at a screening and have never seen again, and those we enjoy meeting here again every year, famous, dusty mugs, big mouths, ugly mugs, heart throbs, every type of face that you’d find in a short film during the Festival’s long winter evenings. Over time, they’ve all become friendly faces, cinematic benchmarks, our neighbors in darkened theaters.

Départ immédiat by Thomas Briat (France, 1995)

Many of them have seared our memories over these past forty years: Karin Viard, for example, smothered by the prim goodwill of her attentive parents (in Philippe Harel’s Une visite, which tied for the Special Jury Prize in 1996), or Eric Caravaca in a heartbreaking, confessional face shot (Marion Vernoux’s Dedans), or again Bruno Lochet’s silent, amourous chase of Amira Casar (in Départ immédiat by Thomas Briat, which also shared 1996’s Special Jury Prize), as well as a whole swathe of new actors who have become major figures, including, to mention only a few, Franc Bruneau, Philippe Rebbot and Vincent Macaigne, splendid losers who nevertheless manage to surprise and enchant us in each of their roles.

Through four programmes, we will try to do justice to the actors who have been and continue to be the heyday of short films: Welcome to acting school!