Why an UNUSUAL FESTIVAL?

At all times, directors have distinguished themselves by transgressing the aesthetic, moral or social standards of their time. Their “unusual” looks helped to change mentalities, conceptions, approaches, expectations. Because it can take different aspects: the strange,
esotericism, the marvelous.

The unusual cinema surprises us, disconcerts, destabilizes, questions … It is there to shake our daily conformist, to open us to an unusual world more poetic, “mixed” art, whether in music, painting, dance , in literature. Let’s be scathing and not bloody.
According to Karlfried Grafdurkeim, “the extraordinary is in the depth of the ordinary. “
The unusual is to find stars at the fingertips … The unusual is it not the language of the inexplicable, simply?

This festival will invite us:

– to enter another world, beyond borders, on the frontiers of the extreme, beyond
beyond appearances.

– To enter into another reality, wider, breaking our habits, and that will divert us.

This unusual festival revisited, will undoubtedly transform our consciousness. And it is his diversity that will make all his wealth and interest. What’s more unusual, than to create this festival in Rennes-le-Château,
mystical village of Aude, epicenter of legends and mysteries, sprawling octopus where Jules Verne came to take inspiration, and “make his claws. We were also influenced by Philippe Marlin’s “The Book of the Strange Days” organized every year.

This festival is legitimate.
We therefore chose to present in competition French and European short films whose subject, scenario or performance disturb, jostle as much as they seduce. Long, medium and short films: “nuggets” to discover or rediscover and keep all their brilliance.

Because the short
métrage is the most adapted medium for developing original looks, universes which only the young cinematographic creation has the secret. Regarding films screened out of competition, our goal is to honor directors whose films have not found their place in traditional distribution channels.
The jury will be composed of journalists from the print, radio and television media under the chairmanship of Andréa Ferréol.

Among the guests of this first edition are the actors Pierre Richard, Olivier Marchal, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, writers and directors, Jan Kounen, Jean Michel Roux, Beryl Peillard, Christophe Blanc,
Reza Benhadj, Vincent Tulli and Hélène Guétary and (subject to availability) Smaïn

Always on the theme of the unusual, performances of paintings, photographs and experimental videos will take place in the galleries under the domain of Abbot Saunière.

Fanny BASTIEN and Geoffroy THIEBAUT