2024-04-17 16:43:14
The Biarritz Latin America festival returns from September 21 to 27. Where does this solid anchor in the city come from?
Biarritz has always had the frustration of having missed the Cannes Film Festival. She needed an event that would honor cinema. After the war, there were two editions, in 1949 and 1950, of the Cursed Film Festival. showing the films rejected at Cannes, but it didn’t work. It is above all the intervention of François-Régis Bastide, writer and diplomat born in Biarritz…
The Biarritz Latin America festival returns from September 21 to 27. Where does this solid anchor in the city come from?
Biarritz has always had the frustration of having missed the Cannes Film Festival. She needed an event that would honor cinema. After the war, there were two editions, in 1949 and 1950, of the Cursed Film Festival. showing the films rejected at Cannes, but it didn’t work. It was above all the intervention of François-Régis Bastide, writer and diplomat born in Biarritz, with Bernard Marie who charted the path towards Latin America. The diaspora is present there and the cultural and economic elites of the subcontinent stay in the summer at the Palais hotel. In 1991, Jean Cazenave and Xavier Darthuis anchored the event in the city. It was called “La Cita” which means “the meeting”, a term that the most loyal subscribers still use. This has continued since and we have the assurance of the current mayor, Maider Arosteguy, of the City’s attachment to the continent and the festival.
How do you calculate attendance?
In thirty-three years, we will have received 1 million spectators in cinemas, through paid admissions. This does not include concerts, free or paid, nor literary and academic meetings. We are the second festival in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, following Pessac, in terms of the number of schools. Each year, 1,600 young people from around forty establishments participate. We cannot deny that it is a niche cinema, little known to non-cinephiles or lovers of Latin American culture, but miraculously, it survives. No doubt because it enjoys, on the other coast of the Atlantic, an incredible aura: every year we have articles in prestigious newspapers. When you have a report in the equivalent of “Le Monde” in Costa Rica, it is the name of Biarritz that is retained. We also have loyal subscribers who come from far away: Swiss, Canadians, Italians and Spaniards of course.
About Spain, in 2024 the BAL will take place from September 21 to 27 and Zinemaldia, from 20 to 28 in San Sebastian. The change of dates to 2023 puts you in direct competition…
We feared this, especially when they strengthened their Latin America section in 2018. Ultimately, it turned out to be an advantage for us. We are not in the same boat: San Sebastian is a category A festival, like Cannes, La Mostra or Locarno. We are much more modest and we have fewer means. In fact, this allows us to have directors or actors in Biarritz who we would not have been able to bring in alone. This is the case, for example, of Pablo Larrain, the director of “Jackie” or “Maria”, who came last year to accompany his first film “No”, on the referendum in Chile.
How are you preparing for the 33rd edition?
From the point of view of our upstream organization, we have integrated into the organization chart personalities like Santiago Amigorena, Argentinian director, accomplice of Cédric Klapisch on “Le Péril Jeune” and also known thanks to his companions Julie Gayet then Juliette Binoche. Maria de Medeiros, who was a member of the jury, becomes honorary president of the festival, and finally, we will have at our side the documentary filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, golden bear in Berlin with “Sur l’Adamant”. These relays are important for the aura of the festival, in Paris and internationally.
Does the global situation in general and the economic situation in particular complicate the situation?
The organization of the festival is well established and we have recovered from the vagaries of the Covid pandemic. We are on track with the line we set two years ago when Jean-Christophe Berjon arrived. Programming has become less elitist, more general. Afterwards, Latin America is a country of social disparities which are necessarily reflected in its cultural production. And indeed the crisis marks this production. Despite this context, it is a continent which is not subject to the warlike tensions of other regions of the world such as Asia or the Middle East.
Do you have an idea of the program, the guests?
It is too early to put forward names or themes. Generally speaking, we want to show the news in these countries. There will be elections in Mexico in June and the rise of populism is at the center of concerns, particularly in Argentina. All this matters to the speakers and guests, as much as the thousand films that we will watch to keep only 30 in the official selection.
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