Da Silva walks
Appointed just one year ago as the delegate-general of the prestigious Cannes sidebar section, Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, François Da Silva resigned on 10 July. In the letter he sent to the board of film directors’ he said that he was leaving because he felt that neither “independence nor time were guaranteed”.
Da Silva succeeded Marie-Pierre Macia in the autumn of 2002 and he made his mark on the 35th edition of the Fortnight (15-25 May 2003) with a highly original selection of films. He is the man who “discovered” titles like Kitchen Stories by Norway’s Bent Hamer, The Mother by UK filmmaker Roger Michell, Las horas del dìa by Spain’s Jaime Rosales (winner of the FIPRESCI prize), A little bit of freedom by Kurdish-born German director Yüksel Yavuz, and L’isola by Italy’s Costanza Quatriglio.
The Da Silva selection did cause some waves and a number of journalists savaged him from the time the line up was announced at the official press conference. Attention was drawn to the controversy in the brochure presenting Directors’ Fortnight 2003, where Da Silva wrote: “Selecting films is something that automatically results in your winning some new friends and losing many, many others.” Da Silva clearly felt that the board of the Directors’ Society – the organisers of the Fortnight – failed to protect him adequately, hence his decision to walk.
Da Silva's successor is 32-year-old Olivier Pere, a programmer at the national film library, or Cinémathèque.
(Translated from French)
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