16/01/2003 - The Close Up festival, partnered by Cineuropa.org, opens today with first films, screenplay readings and debates galore

The 15th edition of the Close Up Festival of Angers, scheduled to run from 17-29 January, includes 60 new European films in competition, retrospectives, tributes and round-table discussions about the ways in which European cinema is evolving.
Cineuropa.org is one of the event’s partners. The professionals accredited to the festival (producers, scriptwriters and directors) will have the possibility to present their projects and personal curricula in the "Screenwriters’ Databank" free-of-charge.
Last year’s winner of this important showcase for coming writing and directing talent was Christophe Honoré with 17 fois Cécille Cassard (17 Times Cécille Cassard).
Veteran French film icon Jeanne Moreau will preside over the jury that includes artists like actress Emilie Duquenne (Rosetta and The Company of Wolves) and Polish film director Krysztof Zanussi. They will choose the winners of each of the four competitive sections, in which a total of ten features, ten shorts and thirty films made by European film schools, will take part.
Poland and Algeria are the subjects of this year’s two retrospectives. Post-WWII Poland from 1945 to the advent of Solidarność will feature in the 27 films by Polanski, Kieslowski, Wajda and Skolimowski.
French actor Daniel Gélin and director Yves Robert, who both died in 2002, were singled out for individual tributes, as was filmmaker Pierre Etaix who will be a special guest of the Angers Festival.
An interesting sidebar will certainly be the screening of 14 European films about anxiety. The selection includes Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up, Lars von Trier’s An Element of Crime, Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis and François Truffaut’s Vivement dimanche!.
The debates that a part-and-parcel of any film festival include an analysis of “New Filmmaking Vision” from three distinct points of view: “The New Vectors that drive and stimulate the choices made by filmgoers”, “New practices and infrastructure to strengthen and transform the traditional rapport between filmgoers and cinemas” and “Audience profiles and motivations” .
On 17 January and 25 January, film industry insiders will be given the opportunity to exchange ideas during round-table discussions about, respectively, the likely changes that will ensue as a result of the decentralisation of the French film industry and the enlargement of the EU, and “Inventing new economic models for European cinema”.

(Translated from French)