Cineffable Archives - Program of the 20th Festival 2008

20 years!

We didn't even see the time go by and now the festival is all grown up, full of energy and enthousiasme - the teen years are over!

The festival was born in the 14th district of Paris, became a suburbanite a few years later and has since come back to Paris. But the Lesbian and Feminist Film Festival has always been international, reflecting the creativity of women film-makers worldwide. Whether it be fiction or documentary, experimental or traditional, serious or light-hearted, you've always enjoyed the films and will surely continue to enjoy them!

For it's 20th anniversary, the festival team will be taking a stroll down memory lane to bring you some of the most notable films of these past two decades along side this year's selection. Those films that have left some of our favorite images in our memories, those that have made all of us shiver, cry, or laugh. Films for the four corners of the globe will be brought to you so that you can share that cinematographic experience and emotion with all the festival goers.

But the festival doesn't just offer you films. As in previous years, the festival organizing team is concocting a variety of other activities and surprises between the screenings. This year's edition will necessarily be special - 20 years is no small feat! And in this smooth and even media landscape without any lesbians, you continue to be the strength that allows our culture to be transmitted. This event is a special opportunity for unique women!

Write the dates of our next cinematographic, festive and militant rendezvous in your agendas right away:
from Thursday, 30 October to Monday, 3 November 2008.

Share the joy of coming together to blow out our 20 candles for this essential event on the international lesbian scene (rated in the Top 10 of worldwide lesbian events in the British magazine Diva!). We look forward to seeing you all this fall to wish the festival a happy birthday!

Lesbians have been making cinema in Paris for 20 years!

Yet another anniversary to celebrate! Not a day passes without a celebration of something or another: births, deaths, historic or cultural events. As the Paris International Lesbian Film Festival turns 20, is it time to blow out the candles?

Above all, the 20th edition of the event is a festival in its own right, with more than 70 feature films and short films on show, mostly for the first time in France. The films come from around 20 countries and are all subtitled, including French films for our friends who are deaf and hard of hearing. As well as the films, there are meetings and debates, an international art exhibition, stands of lesbian creations and initiatives; a cafeteria where we can put the world to rights after watching a film and exchange views on the films with other festival goers and directors, while enjoying the dishes lovingly prepared by the catering committee.

On Thursday, October 30, Véronique Pestel will honour us with her presence and her friendship opening the festival with a concert before the film Vivere by Angelica Maccarone, whose previous works have found favour with the festival, notably Unveiled (18th festival) and Alles Wird Gut (won the public prize at the 10th festival).

On Saturday, November 1st, the party at the Bus Palladium will be the occasion to dance until dawn.

But 20 years is nothing for an organisation which is completely voluntary, self-managed and mainly self-financed. So yes, because 20 is a round figure and a significant length we have decided also to offer you an exhibition, a retrospective of short films and a meeting/debate around the history of the festival, from its origins at the Entrepôt cinema to the Trianon, via the Républic Cinéma, La Clef and the André Malraux cultural centre at Kremlin-Bicêtre. It will also be the occasion to assess the prospects for the future of the festival. The emotions that we feel, we the organisers of 2008, in plunging into the archives to relive the festival's history from the beginnings most of us did not witness, we want to share with you all. For it is a chance to see how the strength of the festival comes from this particular method of organisation which allowed it to develop from year to year, as organisers came and went, while keeping its main direction and collective coherence throughout.

For all that and more see you at the Trianon on October 30!

Program

Like a hurricane passing over us
love and cinema have carried us all away
and 20 years later
like raging waves
that we can not stop
we are still there!

And because at 20
we are a bit mad,
and we flirt,
let's leave room for originality,
diversity, audacity, the unexpected
and voyages...

In magnificent and sometimes distant lands, the tone is set by the five feature fiction films: The World Unseen (South Africa), Drifting Flowers (Taiwan), Rome and Juliet (Philippines), Vivere (Germany) and Dolls (Czech Republic). When it comes to documentaries, our light hearts take us also to Ethiopia, with the exceptional film A Walk to Beautiful, then to the Americas with It's Elementary... and It's STILL elementary..., two American films shot at a 10-year interval, which will be followed by a debate on homophobia in school.

At the age of 20 we are carefree and still hope to change society. We like to discuss, debate, confront each other's positions and ideas, meet people. We seek answers on a plethora of subjects, notably on the issue of gay parents (the session Lesbian and mother, which will be followed by a meeting with the directors), her sexual identity (She's a Boy I knew), the development of the representation of lesbian sexuality before rushing to the Bus Palladium for a wild evening.

Who am I? On which shelf? We marvel at out past with our three sessions of retrospectives and we question our present and our future with Qu'est-ce que tu fais là ? (What are you doing here?) and 20 years after lesbians make cinema preceeds the traditional meeting with the public on Monday at 5:30 pm.

Retrospective Sequence

When we're 20, sometimes we tend to get nostalgic about our childhood and remember the good times.

So what's the retrospective?

First and foremost it's an exhibit that looks back to the festival's beginnings and its adolescent years. It's also a screening of the first ever lesbian feature film in 1931 Girls in Uniform (Trianon, Sunday at 3pm).

	You will also have the pleasure of watching 15 of the short films that have been audience favorites and have won awards at the festival over these past 20 years as part of 2 different screenings (Trianon, Saturday 5:30pm and HSP, Sunday 12:30pm).
And last but not least, come join us for the debate/discussion "20 ans de Festival" following the screening (Trianon, Monday 5:30pm).