FIDMarseille initiates or joins several European projects in order to strengthen its presence worldwide and establish cross-border relations that go beyond the framework and timeframe of the festival. These projects reflect FIDMarseille’s ambition to be a key stakeholder in the training and development of cinephile audiences on a European scale.
CONNECTING FUTURES is a project aimed at young people which is supported by three European festivals: FIDMarseille (Marseille), Underdox (Munich) et Beldocs (Belgrade).
The project targets high school graduates looking for personal and professional counseling. Graduating high school is often a struggle for anyone, but particularly for those whose access to opportunities and ressources is limited by their social background.
Each festival has selected a group of about ten young people and has accompanied them throughout 2023, by implementing a program of screenings and critical debates.
Three key moments have been organised during each festival (May, July and October 2023), with each one focusing on a specific theme (human rights, ecology, activism, etc.). In addition to this social and theme-based initative, a professional training session has been held in Marseille.
These moments has allowed young people to share their thoughts around current political and social issues by way of socially-conscious films and by meeting the people who made them.
We are filmmakers is an educational experiment designed for high school students from partner schools in Marseille, Madrid and Thessaloniki. The goal is to encourage discussion between classes and professionals, to develop a European dialogue and to get young students to see the world differently, but also to create images and films. The point is to associate school departments and prestigious cultural partners in order to build together a new learning of cinema and to underline the importance of a complementary, non-formal education.
The project ended in November 2022. We are filmmakers 2 will be proposed to the Erasmus+ call for projects in March 2023, with the same partners alongside two new ones: Sofia Film Fest (Bulgaria) and DocLisboa (Portugal). The action will be developed over the school year 2023/2024.
Doc Alliance is a cooperation network between seven European festivals: FIDMarseille, CPH:DOX (Copenhagen), Doclisboa (Lisbon), Millenium Docs against Gravity (Poland), DOK Leipzig, Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and Visions du Réel (Nyon).
Its goal is to support filmmakers and producers for the circulation of their work and access to viewers. The films selected by the network screened in the seven festivals thus gain visibility. For the same sake of promotion, two awards are given each year by DocAlliance among a selection of films suggested by all the seven festivals based on their programmation of the previous year. In 2022, the two films selected by FIDMarseille won the two DocAlliance Awards: Lèv La Tèt Dann Fénwar (Erika Etangsalé) and The night of knowing nothing (Payal Kapadia)
DocAlliance is also a dynamic SVOD platform offering an alternative circulation of the films who often struggle to find their place in the market. The platform currently offers permanent access to more than 1,000 films.
Museo Reina Sofía, Doclisboa and FIDMarseille continue the residency program Joaquim Jordà oriented to filmmakers and artists in the field of cinema-essay, experimental film and all the other expressions of non-fiction film. Unique among film residencies, this program brings together a museum and two international film festivals to support all the different phases of creation, from the conception to the materialization of an audiovisual piece. The objective of the program is to encourage the development of film projects in the realm of non-fiction film, facilitating access to funding for their execution and the creation of international networks. The research and development of the project take place during the residency at Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the contacts with producers, fundraisers, and distributors during the period in Marseille through FIDLab, and the networking with filmmakers, artists, and programmers during the period in Lisbon.
The program is named to honor Joaquim Jordà (1935-2006), author of original and emblematic work in non-fiction film, whose personal trajectory spans the three institutions and three countries that have come together to establish this program. This call for applicants seeks to recover his legacy and confirm its place in the genealogy of contemporary non-fiction film.