European Film Festival encourages audiences to consider another perspective

From left: XuFeng, Marianne Tardieu, Xavier Masse and Xavier Garnier

The third edition of the European Film Festival in Macau organized by the Alliance Française de Macao (AF), in collaboration with several French and local institutions opened on October 17 and will close tomorrow.
The festival was last held in Macau in 2014 and this year it has taken a different form, providing more than just screenings. The aim of the new format was to give the educational side of international films a highlighted importance, as explained to the Times AF’s director Xavier Garnier.
“We had this idea of organizing not only screenings but also inviting some [film] directors to teach about cinema and do some workshops,” Garnier mentioned, explaining that the idea comes directly from the French festival “Premiers Plans”, held in d’Angers, is already on its way to its 29th edition next January. The French festival incorporates seminars and workshops on the topic of how to shoot a movie. These workshops are intended to engage a young generation of potential filmmakers
For this edition, the organizers invited, among others, French film director Marianne Tardieu. Her movie “Qui Vive” (“Who Lives”) was screened and she held a seminar and a two-day workshop targeting MUST’s phD students. Professor Xu Feng, from the Drama Academy in Beijing and an expert on French movies in China joined her in presenting the seminar.
“It makes sense for us as AF [to have this educational side] because we support culture promotion but we are also an education institution,” Garnier said expressing hopes that in the near future “we can send some students to France [to study cinema],” in a possible partnership with MUST.
The idea to bring the French and European style movies is to introduce people to reflect on other topics, other ideas and different ways to “tell stories,” as mentioned to the Times by Xu Feng, who has provided analysis on film style and film narrative throughout the festival.
“It is very interesting for the students. This morning [yesterday] I taught about the French film system and how that system helped the national cinema and art cinema. Students have different perceptions, many of them had never heard of that system even, others are well aware and know about it,” Prof Xu said, adding, “opportunities like this will give them more and different experiences that are fruitful.”
In Xu’s opinion, the contact of the students with this kind of European film promotes “very touching experiences of real life. These films appeal a lot to people’s minds and emotions and I think they will be somehow marked by this experience.”
The AF are responsible for the promotion of French culture and for educating audiences around the world about the evolution of French movies, starting from the “New Wave” era that made French cinema known worldwide.
Marianne Tardieu told the Times that the experience of showing her movie to Macau students was surprising.
“For a lot of them [students] that was the first French movie that they ever seen so they were a bit surprised by my way of telling stories and by the way I take my time to show ordinary people in their lives,” she said. “I think they were also a bit surprised by the movie addressing a lot of social situations, namely they wanted to know how it would be possible to find money [sponsors] to tell this kind of stories because they found that is not so easy here.”
The director noted that the students were very interested and focused on learning techniques and styles from the French tradition. According to Tardieu they noted characteristic aspects “things like the rhythm and the way of highlighting the lives of young people, poor people or people living in the shadow.”
“Although it sounds a bit cliché watching movies done by other people from other cultures no matter which always opens our mind, different points-of-view always creates richness,” Tardieu remarked.