17/03/2014 - Cineuropa met up with Gaëlle Rodeville, the managing director of this highly original event on the French and European scene

The 15th edition of the Aubagne International Film Festival (17-22 March 2014), which opens today in Provence, showcases an event dedicated to the promotion of young cinema and to music-making for images – a highly original editorial focus in amongst the multitude of European events dedicated to the seventh art.

“By organising a festival that highlights the relationship between music and images, we wish to showcase young directors and young composers at the same time,” managing director Gaëlle Rodeville explained to Cineuropa. “Many festivals concern themselves with film music, particularly through awards or conferences, but they are not real platforms where composers and directors can get together. On a European scale, other festivals work with film music, but they focus more on the commercial side of things and not so much on young creators.” Interestingly, this year, the guests of honour include Bruno Coulais and Jean-Michel Bernard (the latter of whom will give a masterclass in composing music for images). 

“Original scores are the poor relation in a film’s budget,” Rodeville highlighted. “You call a composer towards the end of the budget, and there isn’t this automatic reflex to give a lot of thought to music and sound, even though it’s essential in order to tell a story, with respect to the narrative and the emotion that it brings out. However, new technology and the possibility of making your own music without the aid of an orchestra now allow easy access to musical creations. Are they really film music composers? That’s another debate to be had within a field where, furthermore, there is currently a trend towards electronic music.”

Among the feature films in competition this year at Aubagne are Of Horses and Men [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Benedikt Erlingsson
film profile] by Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson, L'arbitro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paolo Zucca
film profile] by Italy’s Paolo Zucca (watch the video interview), Puppy Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Belgian director Delphine Lehericey, A Long Story [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Dutch filmmaker Jorien van Nes, the Finnish film Above Dark Waters [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Peter Franzen, the Estonian documentary Flowers from the Mount of Olives by Heilika Pikkov and 2 Autumns, 3 Winters [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French director Sébastien Betbeder. Also featuring outside of competition is For Those in Peril [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: George Mackay
film profile] by Britain’s Paul Wright.

“Above all, we want the audience to discover films that have never been distributed in France; but we are also presenting a number of works that have already come out but which, unfortunately, didn’t reach our region’s theatres – not even in Marseille,” concluded Rodeville.

(Translated from French)