Editorial by Caroline Champetier, AFC president

May 09
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par Caroline Champetier -  La Lettre AFC n°187

As it does each year, the Cannes Film Festival will make the film planet go round at 300 miles per hour. There are no speed limits in Cannes... Films of great directors and other unknown ones will be screened in the best possible conditions (which is not true of all the festivals), films whose modes of production techniques are increasingly hybrid : both photochemical and digital, as much in production as in post.

But the great (though not the only) virtue of the festival, which is the largest film festival in the world, is to render all films equal, whatever the technologies or budgets involved. A great film is still the work of a director who has called for new or recurrent collaborations. It is these collaborations that we must speak of, along with our partners, inventors and renters of cameras, lenses, lighting and grip equipment, film stock manufacturers, film and digital laboratories.

The film industry is not just a matter of negotiations by producers, agents and financiers. As its name suggests, it is industrial in nature, it is a "production tool".

The CNC (French National Cinema Center) knows this and knows how to help this industry to maintain itself, to perfect itself and to innovate for the coming years, which we know will be the battleground for major economic challenges. It is up to us, through our investigations, experiments, technical and artistic questioning, to understand, to inform and to prevent premature enthusiasms and dangerous drifts.

Digital projection is established and now normalized. This is not the case for an exciting technology that may further modify our perception of cinema, and the approach that directors will have who take it up : stereoscopic vision, aka 3D. This is a new testing ground about which we have many questions, including that of the projection screen with metal paint, known as "silver".

Our presence at Cannes, in addition to the 13 films photographed by AFC cinematographers, will be daily and in participation with the stand of the CST, whom we congratulate for their vigilant work. This presence should allow, in the enthusiasm of cinema, to make tangible our collaborations, questioning and concerns, by associating with our partners and involving our directors.