Clermont-Ferrand, the world’s leading short film festival based in France’s Auvergne region, celebrates its 47th edition with a keen awareness of the “vital” role of short filmmaking in modern times. The festival, which runs from January 30 to February 7, will bring together acclaimed festival winners, as well as new films from Army of Thieves actor Noemi Nakai (The Bathhouse) and Nothing Compares director Kathryn Ferguson (Nostalgia), and a documentary about living with ADHD narrated by Tilda Swinton (Impulse).
In an interview with Variety ahead of the festival, festival programmers Laura Thomasett and Julie Rouson said this year’s selections “reflect the world we live in.” “Several of the films in our international competition express the desire to escape, from the Chinese worker’s look for hope through a window in ‘Out of the Window’ to the American and Singaporean hero’s exploration of the wilderness in ‘When You Will Be Big’ and ‘Bua’.”
Mr. Tomasset and Mr. Luzon stand here on behalf of the festival’s large programming team, all of whom have equal standing in Clermont-Ferrand’s non-hierarchical curatorial structure. They say the selection process is related to the way the team operates, “which means it is collective and the result of close collaboration.”
This year, our programming team selected 137 films from a pool of 8,826 entries across 50 countries. The curators said that while it would be an “impossible undertaking” to highlight specific titles within the vast program, they were offering a selection of “highly anticipated films across the competition”. These included Louis Hindemann’s “tense and claustrophobic” “Majid/Zafar,” which was performed at the festival’s international competition shortly after winning the BIFA Best Short Story award. He talked about Zaga’s “Coyote,” a “powerful thriller” that premiered in Venice to rave reviews, and Diane Ways’ “Vulture,” a “moving film” that premiered at Cannes. The latter title will be played in the festival’s national competition.
For the Lab competition, the team is highlighting Death of a Fantastic Machine, an AI-focused sequel to Axel Danielsson and Maximilian van Aertlik’s 2023 Sundance masterpiece, And What a Wonderful Machine, and Nicolas Gouraud’s Their Eyes, which explores inequalities in the development of self-driving car technology. When it comes to the festival’s XR competition, a standout title is Barry Jean Murphy and May Abdallah’s “Impulse: Playing With Reality,” which focuses on people living with ADHD and is narrated by Tilda Swinton.
Le Court, provided by Camille Dampierre
Camille Dampierre
This year’s Clermont-Ferrand focuses on Southeast Asia, with the festival team pointing out how the region has emerged in recent years as “one of the most dynamic regions” in global cinema. “We believe that Southeast Asian cinema is witnessing a complete transformation of the world,” the curators told Variety, stressing that the selection is “particularly noteworthy” given that it also marks the 30th anniversary of the Thai Short Film and Video Festival. As part of the special focus, the festival will welcome French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung as a juror for the international competition. The filmmakers of “The Taste of Things” will also be giving a masterclass at the event.
In a socio-political climate where displaced filmmakers are in dire need of financial support as well as bureaucratic relief to quickly screen their timely stories, major international film festivals are highlighting the benefits of short film production. Last year, the Rotterdam International Film Festival’s Hubert Valls Foundation, led by UNHCR Global Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett, launched the Refugee Film Fund, which aims to support and finance the work of displaced filmmakers. The first wave of short films, directed by acclaimed filmmakers such as Marina El Gorbach and Mohammad Rasoulof, is scheduled for particularly quick screening at the next festival this year.
When asked how they perceive the importance of short film production in this context, Clermont-Ferrand’s programmers said that this practice “feels particularly important right now.”
“Short films often involve filmmakers taking risks,” they add. “They are laboratories for new techniques, storytelling approaches, or challenging subject matter. In an era when feature films are increasingly risk-averse: franchises, established IPs, tried-and-true formulas, short films are a space for true experimentation and artistic courage. There’s something about our current moment that is so fragmented, so overwhelming, so fast, that a well-made short film can powerfully convey a single point, capture a fleeting cultural moment, or crystallize a feeling before it’s gone.
Asked about the festival’s continued success, the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival is the second largest film festival in France after Cannes in terms of audience numbers and professional attendance, but the programming team believes the festival’s continued appeal is due to its “genuinely collaborative” nature.
Looking to the future, the team hopes to “continue to welcome young professionals” at their annual joint workshop, Atelier. The atelier is a temporary film school that will be open to the public for five days during the festival, and they hope to expand into a venue “worthy of Clermont-Ferrand’s status.” “By 2029, the festival’s 50th anniversary, we want this vision to be realized through the Cité du Côte, a dynamic cultural space and center for emerging filmmakers. With the support of our partners, this development should establish Clermont-Ferrand as a center for short films.”
