Having headed up Cinemed – Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival for 12 years now, Christophe Leparc (who’s also served as the secretary general of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight since 2008) discusses the event’s 48th edition (see our article dated 15 October), which will run from 16 to 24 October.

Cineuropa: What impact is the turbulent international and national climate having on film creation in the countries around the Mediterranean?
Christophe Leparc: We’ve received as many films as in previous years, and they’re very high quality. It’s counter-intuitive but creativity sometimes flourishes in constrained conditions, and it’s no coincidence that we’re dedicating a focus to young independent Egyptian cinema this year, a strand that’s struggling to exist, mainly because of censorship, but which has nonetheless enjoyed a strong presence in international festivals over recent years. We received over 1,000 shorts from across the Mediterranean Basin, and this profusion of works shows that young filmmakers are highly productive, they’re finding ways to make their films and to get them to us. But what’s reflected in their films is the fairly dramatic state of the world, especially in films coming from Palestine. The overall situation may be worsening, but that doesn’t stop talent in the sector from creating.

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As for the French context, it’s shaped by the upcoming elections and fears of radical change in political governance. Filmmakers, and festivals like ours, have to call out the lies peddled by a certain political fringe, notably on the far right. There’s an insidious little refrain that’s infecting minds, for example, which keeps repeating that the CNC’s money comes from our taxes, that it’s badly distributed, that it serves no purpose, and it should, therefore, be abolished. But that’s wrong: the CNC’s money comes from a levy on cinema tickets, which is then redistributed virtuously so that French independent cinema – and films from even further afield, thanks to the Aide aux Cinéma du Monde fund - can survive in the face of American audiovisual behemoths. Our cultural independence and freedom are at stake. It’s a battle we need to fight, and we’re already seeing an example of this with the recent decision by a far-right mayor of the town of Elne, in Pyrénées-Orientales, to strip the René Vautier cinema of its name on the pretext that this filmmaker was anti-colonialist. And this mayor now wants to interfere with the cinema’s programming. It’s extremely dangerous to let this pass, because freedom in programming is essential.

What about the geographical trends characterising your fiction feature film competition this year, which consists of two Kosovar films, one Romanian, one Italian, one French, one Georgian, two Lebanese and one Palestinian-Syrian work?
We select on instinct, resulting in a fairly tight competition composed of nine films, so we’re not necessarily striving for full representation of the entire Mediterranean region. Spain offered us lots of interesting films last year, but less so this year. The Maghreb is also less visible, with fewer submissions from Tunisia in particular, where a pretty impressive clampdown is under way. As for Israel, when you see that the two filmmakers behind a film (NAZA) denouncing what’s happening in Gaza are at risk of being stripped of their nationality, that’s not a good sign, and we’ve seen very few Israeli films over the past three years, so the trend towards censorship is being confirmed. However, more broadly speaking, we shouldn’t forget the feature films in our Panorama section, which might have previously screened in competitions in France or are a little older. Since they’re also eligible for our Audience Award, French distributors are increasingly keen to show us films for this section, which has become much more high-quality over the years.

How can the theatrical distribution of films showcased in your festival be improved?
The Golden Antigone for Best Film comes with €10,000 to support the film’s release, so it’s a very strong incentive for distributors. But we also created a new prize last year, the Southern Cinema-Operators’ Prize, which encourages exhibitors to back films which already have a French distributor or are on the verge of finding one, by committing to screen the title in their cinemas for at least three weeks. This kind of initiative makes distributors’ work easier and encourages them to commit more readily. All of this helps convince international sales agents that a showcase in Cinemed lends films visibility and journalistic, critical and public resonance which spark distributors’ interest.

What are your ambitions for the festival’s professional section, the Cinemed Meetings, which operates upstream of production?
It’s a virtuous circle: more and more professionals are proposing projects to us, and more and more people are coming to discover these projects. With the Development Grant, the Aflamuna meetings (which have bolstered the festival’s international side) and the Du Court Au Long scheme, we’ve struck a good balance by sticking to the project-development stage. Last year, we presented 57 projects; there were 214 participants, and 464 one-to-one meetings were organised. That’s what interests professionals: they come to Cinemed to meet young auteurs who are representing a project. If they connect during their meeting, it might not come to anything for that particular project, but they’ll still have met a young artist whom they might be interested in in future. We’re keen to preserve that family feel, that intimacy, that human dimension, which fosters a slightly deeper relationship than a simple pitch to professionals.