The artistic director of Critics’ Week for four years now, Ava Cahen met with us to unpick her selection (read our article) for this year’s parallel section, whose 65th edition is due to unspool between 13 and 21 May within the 79th Cannes Film Festival.

Cineuropa: How did the selection process unfold?
Ava Cahen: We beat our record for the number of feature films watched (1,050 from 106 countries) and it turns out that film production is in great shape all around the world, when it comes to first and second films, anyway. And 30% of these films were made by women, so there has been a gentle progression. But before the process of watching and selecting films, there’s the whole other matter of prospection, meeting filmmakers, producers, sales agents and distributors, to take the temperature of the industry and to work out what should be on our radar for the year to-date. It’s all proved really fruitful and I’m very happy with the result.

(L'articolo continua qui sotto - Inf. pubblicitaria)

This year’s selection is very Eurocentric, with lots of French films in particular, a few Asian works and a hint of Latin American work.
We’re guided by artistic excellence in our choices. We tried to find a mix in terms of forms, formats, tones and registers. Generally speaking, Europe always tends to be in great shape, but this year it’s represented by countries which aren’t well-established: it had been a long time since we’d had an Irish film in the selection, but we’ll be presenting the documentary Tin Castle. And it’s the first time we’ve had a Kosovar film, Dua, in the selection. The competition is still primarily international since it also includes films from Spain (Alive), Yemen (The Station), Mexico (Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul)... And we also received a far higher number of Chinese films than usual, on subjects which hadn’t really been explored in the past as a result of censorship, which has now been lifted. One of these is A Girl Unknown, which focuses on the one-child policy and what it means to be a woman, and specifically a female child, in China.

French films are in the majority, it’s true, but that’s because French cinema is so vibrant right now. We need to celebrate this, and we wanted to use the non-competitive section to show our love for it once again. But we’ve tried to show the many different facets of this particular diamond, especially when it comes to In Waves, an animated film which is opening the section, which is a first for Critics’ Week. But it’s a French film set in California, a melodrama with all the trappings of an independent US film. And we’ll be closing this year’s edition with Adieu monde cruel which pays particular tribute to François Truffaut’s films, with a very Seventies feel to it.

La Gravida, Dua, A Girl Unknown, Seis meses…, La Frappe, Adieu monde cruel: young people lead the way in six of the 11 feature films gracing your selection. Was this a result of your editorial line or a production trend?
It was more of a trend in production, but it’s no new thing since first films often explore intimacy, the transition from childhood to adolescence or from adolescence to adulthood. Looking at the world through the eyes of adolescents who are working out who they are, or children whose illusions are shattered due to a dysfunctional family or a war, makes us question our own adult way of looking at the world. But we lent towards these films because we liked them. And we don’t only have adolescents or children in our line-up: the heroine of Alive is experiencing a mid-life crisis and is looking to shake up her routine, Flesh and Fuel is a beautiful love story revolving around two truck drivers, Tin Castle is a family portrait, and in La Gradiva there’s obviously a group of teenagers but there’s also a Latin teacher, so we see two worlds coming together.

Young people, family, women and illness: the main themes emerging from the selection seem to hint at emotionally focused films…
Illness is something that affects all of us, but what we’re interested in is how cinema can transcend subject matter. In In Waves, a young couple who have only just fallen in love are put to the test by illness. What should they do? Split up? Give all of themselves to the other person? These are really beautiful, universal questions. Seis meses… looks at HIV, but it’s always sweet and never serious because it takes us back to the memories of a little 11-year-old boy, and when you’re that age you don’t see illness in the same way as you do when you’re an adult. As for the protagonist of Alive, she’s just recovered from cancer and all she really wants to do is get laid.

We watch the films with a critical eye, analysing the finer details, from their form to their dramaturgy and their acting performances, but we also listen to our hearts. Quality is key to the selection, but with first films we don’t only need to take care of them, we also have to hope that they find their audience, because a film only truly exists when it’s been seen. In Critics’ Week, we try to reinvigorate the public’s love of films, in a certain sense, by way of new films, new faces, new outlooks, new stories and new ways of presenting them, whether through documentaries, animation, live action, drama, bittersweet comedies, melodrama, home movies, etc. We have different genres but what matters most is that these films find their audiences. These screenings in Cannes are the first step, but then it’s all about what happens outside of Cannes.

Is it gratifying that six of your 11 directors are women, and that 5 of them are screening in competition?
We don’t operate a quota-based system, but we always strive to send a message because first and second films are the right place to do this. There are years when we succeed, and others when we don’t. In recent years, we’ve received 24%, then 26% and now 30% of films which are made by women, but once again, we didn’t select their films because they were women, we just fell in love with them. We have an emotional barometer - we look for films which move us, with the idea that if they move us, maybe they’ll move other people too.

What about any competition or complementarity between your section and the other selections on the Croisette ?
I’m thrilled that Emmanuel Marre and Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s second feature films and Léa Mysius’ third feature film have been selected for the Official Competition, because these filmmakers were all revealed in Critics’ Week. It gives meaning to our work. More generally speaking, we make decisions wholly independently of other sections. When we like films, we say so to the production teams. It’s really about love and desire, and it makes for a wonderful adventure when we’re on the same page. But sometimes film teams decide to set up shop elsewhere. Either way, given our limit of 11 feature films, we can’t select all the films that we liked. It’s a collective endeavour and we have really healthy, solid lines of communication with the Official Competition team, which helps us make decisions freely. Recently, Thierry Frémaux raised the question of the places we should give to certain films. First films are precious and fragile, you have to be able to support them properly, not suffocate them, help them to breathe across the entire Cannes-based market. With our selection of 11 films, our attention is more focused, more centred. We try to shine a light in the right place at the right time, and to leave room for each film to live its best life.