The Clermont Ferrand Film Festival is a treasure trove for budding amateurs

If you want to be involved in making films, what can the Clermont Film Festival offer you?

 

clermont Ferrand

The Clermont Ferrand Film Festival is the biggest short film festival in the world and the second largest in France, after Cannes.

It boasts more than 150,000 attendees annually with an additional 3,500 professionals.

Situated in the heart of France’s Auvergne region, it screens 450 films from 14 venues.

So it’s not a two-bit show. So why should you go there? If you are a budding screenwriter, cameraman, makeup artist, photographer or filmmaker what can it offer you?

Well, quite a lot actually. There are workshops and masterclasses aplenty to keep your interest peaked.

L’Atelier | Temporary film school

Young visitors of the festivals and the general public can watch and learn from a dozen ongoing workshops. Each workshop highlights one aspect of filmmaking, from make-up to photography, from recording sound or a film score to CGI or VFX, from acting to animation or augmented reality.

This event is organized and coordinated by Sauve qui peut le court métrage, the Clermont-Ferrand School of Architecture, the Groupe ESC Clermont School of Management and ARFIS Villeurbanne. The workshops are from Monday, February 5 until Friday, February 9. You can find more information here.

Expresso | Meet the directors

Every morning during the festival the directors of the films in competition speak about their films.

Documentation center

Clermont-Ferrand has a unique documentation center devoted to cinema and short films in particular: nearly 100,000 short films are held on its video server and can be watched throughout the year.

Masterclass

The Clermont festival will be hosting four classes:

    • As part of the Face Forward retrospective this year, a master class is hosted by French film journalist Laurent Weil (Canal+) with Franc Bruneau, Laurent Lucas, Vimala Pons, Laetitia Spigarelli and André Wilms. In French only. 5 February 15:00
    • South Korean director Na Hon-Jin (The Murderer, The Strangers) gives advice on scripts. 6 February 16:00
    • Rodolphe Chabrier (Splice, Asterix et Obelix, 3 Days to Kill)  and director Olivier Mégaton (Le Transporteur 3, Colombiana, Taken 2) impart their knowledge on VFX. In French only. 7 February 10:00
    • A meeting with the Swiss director Georges Schwizgebel, one of the most renowned film directors in the animation world. Hosted by Antoine Lopez. In French only. 8 February 13:00

Developing my short film project:

Directors, screenwriters, students will be able to receive advice and guidance for the development of their short film projects from a dozen producers and recognized experts in project support. 7 February.

You can find more on what’s happening on and the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival here.

There are a ton of industry-related event and you can find out more about them here.

For the definitive guide on the festival check out the website here.

Everton Gayle