The International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) opens today with an ambitious program focused on creativity, diversity, inclusion and travel. From March 14 to 26, more than 200 films will be screened at several venues in Montreal, as well as at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, in the nation’s capital.
For the first time, the festival will also be deployed on the Web, offering the entire Quebec public the possibility of viewing several works online, thanks to a special program that will run from March 24 to April 2.
It is difficult to summarize in a few lines what awaits the participants of this 41e eclectic edition to say the least. On the menu: documentaries, recordings of performances and artistic performances that highlight the richness and plurality of the art world, from cinema to dance, including photography, architecture, visual arts, fashion and ancestral practices.
“What guides me in developing the program is really the news of the films,” explains Philippe U. del Drago, general and artistic director. We want FIFA to give the temperature of the art world, to tell what is happening in the world of the arts today, both at home and abroad. »
Filmmakers from 49 countries will therefore open a window on realities, cultures, traditions and revolutions to which the public rarely has access. “We go to meet a subjectivity that meets another, through the eyes of these artists who stage other artists. I talk a lot about an invitation to travel, since each work is both a geographical, temporal and spiritual journey. »
White cards
For several years, FIFA has offered a space for expression to artists and curators from all over the world so that they can program a special evening related to their artistic vision, their mission, their culture and their heritage.
“The white cards are a way of avoiding thinking in silos, emphasizes Philippe U. del Drago. We give the floor as much to major international institutions as to emerging programmers, or to artists who work from a specific practice or geographical issue. Thanks to these precise and fresh looks, there is a real dialogue that emerges. »
The organizing committee has notably chosen to offer a carte blanche to Cirque du Soleil, which will present, on March 21 at the Outremont theater, a recording of the emblematic show Oh. “Not many people get to see this show on stage. It’s a bit of a way to democratize art, to make it accessible to as many people as possible”, specifies the artistic director.
This recording will be preceded by a series of short films. In Circus Raw, Cirque du Soleil artists present minimalist performances, in places stripped of the artifices associated with circus art, including the Nevada desert. Then, Life Is a Circus will take the viewer to the four corners of the world, to meet fans, creators and places that form the DNA of the company. An exclusive excerpt from a show in preparation, ECHOwill also be presented.
The Institut du monde arabe de Paris, for its part, has chosen to articulate its carte blanche around documentaries and films by queer artists who testify to the struggles taking place in the Arab world to be able to freely express their gender identity. and his sexuality. The screenings are scheduled for March 18 and 25, respectively at the Museum’s cinema and the McCord Stewart Museum.
Riopelle’s centenary
Among the other expected events, FIFA wanted to organize the special program “Around Riopelle”, to mark the centenary of the painter’s birth and celebrate his avant-garde imagination. During two evenings scheduled for March 15 and 19, in Quebec City and then in Montreal, a screening of the documentary Geese by Jean Paul Riopelle will be preceded by the collection of short films Riopelle in courts.
Five young filmmakers freshly graduated from the National Institute of Image and Sound, accompanied and supervised by director Charles Binamé, were invited to imagine short films inspired by the master of the visual arts. “It’s a way to make it resonate in the contemporary world, to see how an artist from yesterday inspires the young generation of today. The result is really surprising, sometimes experimental, sometimes classic, but always very poetic and evocative,” says the artistic director.
“My goal is to walk around downtown Montreal and have something in my program for each of the passers-by I meet. FIFA is a festival about art and cinema, but it’s above all a festival that celebrates people. »