|| FESTIVAL LES INATTENDUS ||

7th EDITION || 25-31 JANUARY 2010

CALL FOR ENTRIES

Les Inattendus Festival sets out to present atypical films to audiences. Engagement with an exploratory, experimental approach should be manifest, whatever the genre - fiction, documentary, animation, essay...

There is no set theme, no preferred length, no fixed genre or medium.
Entries are welcomed from individual filmmakers, collectives, workshops, schools...

We would particularly emphasise that narrative works, which make up a large proportion of entries, should be of a resolutely experimental nature.

New closing date : 15th JULY 2009

EDITORIAL

As we embark upon the 7th edition of Les Inattendus festival, here is a brief reminder of our basic aim: to show films rarely take into account by the cinema and television industries, in public, with the greatest possible artistic and technical respect.

Now let us look at an important but often forgotten aspect of the festival – the fact that it is a gathering. Nowadays, any spectator can access films of all sorts in an enormous variety of ways. Although this does not necessarily concern the works we show at Les Inattendus, they too have become increasingly available, sometimes on TV, more frequently on Internet. While it does have its uses, this type of access is often impersonal and devoid of a temporal framework, and can in no way replace the aesthetic, emotional and philosophical experience which a festival such as Les Inattendus attempts to provide. In our opinion, this is not only a question of the difference in perception related to a projection on a large screen or the shared experience of an audience.

What is particularly important to us is that certain people (known as "curators"), who share a certain amount of artistic, intellectual and moral imperatives, fully, yet unassumingly (and of course gladly), take on the responsibility of presenting to another, a priori unknown, set of people (known as "the audience") the sounds and pictures created by a third group of people (known as "filmmakers), their choice essentially guided by the conviction that these works must be shown, within a given period (meetings can only occur within a shared time frame), and in a place elected for its historical and social character: La Guillotière, an inner-city area in Lyon, where we organise film screenings and workshops throughout the year.

We attempt to ensure that filmmakers, spectators and curators meet, debate, discuss and argue as freely and as informally as possible before, during and after the festival screenings. It is up to all to see to it that this one-week long get-together becomes not just a succession of works on display, but an opportunity for exchange and unforeseen experience.

Les Inattendus.