Retro Pedalling

Each year, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival presents a panorama about a thematic retrospective.

The first film reel ever…

Leaving the factory, facing the Lumière brothers’ Cinematograph, disentangling themselves from a crowd of pedestrians… Here they come already: the cyclists!

And with them of course, comes that indispensable, “that marvelous machine”, the bike, which writer Paul Fournel says, “noiselessly carries you to the end of the road faster than your own self.” Why change gears when Fournel says it so well? “Cycling is a language. A language where everything merges in breathlessness, a language of shouts, a language of agility and joy that bends into the silence of the mountains and emerges at the edge of the wood. A peaceful, evening language that tells and retells our memory of exploits both great and small.”

And this language has most definitely inspired filmmakers from cinema’s very beginnings onwards. Our thematic retrospective on cycling is visual proof of this: slaves of the asphalt, bike nuts and daily riders take up the leading roles and share the road with us on their adventures.

Whether you want to take off, overtake, or simply take a breath of fresh air, saddle up for three programs of cyclotherapy!