Cartes blanches
Every year, we believe it’s important to invite partners, friends, and colleagues to create “Cartes Blanches” for us. For this 27th edition, we’ve entrusted this task to France Télévisions—a long-standing partner and major supporter of short films—as well as to the Emergence Festival in Togo, with which we organize year-round creative workshops, and the Beirut Shorts Festival in Lebanon. We’ve asked them to curate three “Cartes Blanches” programs that we can’t wait to share with you.
Togo à l'honneur
Wednesday, September 9 – 4:00 p.m.
To mark the 12th edition of the Emergence Festival in Lomé, we are collaborating in November to organize a very special edition as part of Togo Créatif’s Festival Nomade program. Furthermore, in an effort to highlight this relationship between Togo and Europe, we felt it was appropriate to offer the French public a “Carte Blanche” featuring Togolese short films. And who better than Emergence to curate a selection of the best short films from Togo? Togo will also be represented in the Creative Workshops and at the International Short Film Market—come meet Joël Tchedre and his guests.
Focus Liban
Thursday, September 10 – 4:00 p.m.
Curated by Nicolas Khabbaz, Artistic and Programming Director of Beirut Shorts and the Batroun Mediterranean Film Festival, this special selection brings together five Lebanese short films that offer a portrait of a vibrant and resilient Lebanon.There are the ruins, of course, but also everything that continues to live and take shape around them. Through themes of memory, work, desire and survival, these five films offer a multifaceted portrait of the country, far from any single narrative. Each film captures the complexity of everyday life in its own way, balancing realism, irony and poetry. A selection in which cinema does more than bear witness to reality—it also finds new ways of looking at it.
France Télévisions
Tuesday, September 8 – 4:00 p.m.
This year, France Télévisions’ Short Film Division presents an exceptional “carte blanche” program featuring short films directed by three actors and actresses who have made the leap from acting to directing. Because a passion for cinema and an overwhelming desire to direct have always transcended the boundaries of established roles, Fanny Ardant, Louise Bourgoin, and Hugo Becker invite you to discover and share, in their presence, three cinematic works whose intensity is matched only by the sincerity of their creators.
