The hundreds of people invited to the opening of the Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC), Wednesday evening, at the National Monument, had to leave the room due to a technical glitch. The first Quebecois toA universal language by Matthew Rankin, winner of the Audience Award at the Quinzaine des filmmakers at the last Cannes Film Festival, stopped during the film.
The problem particularly concerned the sound, which was difficult to hear since the start of the projection. After about ten minutes, Michel Pradier, the interim general director of the festival, took the stage and explained that he had to stop the screening “out of respect for the team of this wonderful film”.
The crowd left, stunned. This event came after a series of speeches that lasted about an hour. During his inaugural speech, Mr. Pradier said he wanted to make the FNC a high-caliber event, unmissable in North America. Several guests deplored the irony of the situation, especially since dozens, even hundreds of people were over-invited during the evening, according to festival-goers coming across them as they left the room.
In fact, before the inauguration even began — at least half an hour late — many people, we don’t yet know how many, should have gone home.
Contacted by Dutythe film’s distributor, Maison4tiers, admitted to having been confronted with a “technical bug”, without wanting to give more details.
The Festival du nouveau cinéma then sent a press release, jointly with Maison4tiers, saying it was “extremely disappointed”. “We deplore this situation and stand in solidarity with the entire film team who were unable to celebrate the quality of this film which represents Canada in the race for the Oscar for best international language film. », added Mr. Pradier and Chantale Pagé, president of Maison4tiers, in their email.
As for the people who were allegedly over-invited, the FNC maintains that these were latecomers who were unable to return after the start of the event, while festival-goers claimed to have been wrongly turned away. In any case, the public who were invited on Wednesday will receive new invitations for the resumption.
The two organizations have committed to renewing the screening at a later date, which will be announced later.
In addition to the film crew, including Matthew Rankin and actor Mani Soleymanlou, several dignitaries were present Wednesday evening. Among them, the Minister of Culture of Quebec, Mathieu Lacombe, and the president and CEO of the Société de développement des enterprises culturelle, SODEC, Louise Lantagne.