As a cultural laboratory, the Festival reaches out to all kinds of audiences
More than a film festival and a forum, the FIFDH has become a cultural laboratory. From 13 February onwards, the Festival goes out to meet audiences in detention centres, hospitals or migrant shelters and opens its screenings and debates to people in precarious situations.
Nathalie Fontanet and Yves Daccord at Champ-Dollon and La Brenaz
"Our interventions in places of incarceration are a bridge between the outside and the inside, a human adventure where borders and differences no longer exist. Cinema has the particularity of bringing together and pushing boundaries" emphasizes Claudia Dessolis, who is at the origin of these projects at the FIFDH.
As of 13 February, detainees at Champ-Dollon, La Brenaz and La Clairière will be watching films and taking part in debates. They will have five weeks to award a prize at the official closing of the Festival. This year, State Councillor Nathalie Fontanet, ICRC Director General Yves Daccord, filmmaker Antoine Russbach and actress Pauline Schneider will be among the speakers at these institutions.
Artist Prune Nourry in a discussion with HUG's patients
The FIFDH also works jointly with the HUG, Geneva's University Hospitals. Within the framework of Artopie, an HUG - Children Action project supported by the Harcourt Foundation, it offers films and discussions during five weeks in the child and adolescent psychiatry departments. This year, a screening of the film Serendipity, produced by Darren Aronofsky and Angelina Jolie and directed by the internationally renowned visual artist Prune Nourry, will bring together at the HUG the festival's public and patients from the Cancer Centre and the Breast Centre of the HUG. Prune Nourry will answer questions from the audience after the screening.
Opening the Festival to everyone: suspended tickets
The Festival proposes "suspended tickets", freely offered by patrons in order to encourage the integration of all audiences. The central venues of the FIFDH are thus frequented by 400 beneficiaries of welfare assistance, the General Hospice, and associations working with people in situations of great precariousness.
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Photo: Ruth Dreifuss in a discussion with detainees people at Champ-Dollon during FIFDH 2019. Credit: Etat de Genève
