[In Eng.] How American is this International Film Festival of La Roche-sur-Yon?

La Roche-sur-Yon ! You may not know the sing-song name of this wonderful and grandiose west-coast French city and yet it hosts the famous International Film Festival in Vendée. Forget about Cannes, dream and fun happen here, in La Roche-sur-Yon! But what is this Festival anyway?

First things first, the Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary thanks mainly to Paolo Moretti who has also been the artistic director of “La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs” of the Cannes Film Festival for 2 years.
Each year, the FIF (granted, the full name is a bit of a bore!) presents over 70 films from various countries.

Thus, this event is the opportunity for the French public to discover international movies from all around the world, such as The Photographer, an Indian romantic drama, or Tutto l’oro che c’è (in English, “Gold is all there is”), an Italian documentary about nature and environment.
However, when we talk about cinema, we obviously think about American cinema, Oscars, Hollywood, and so on. So, let’s talk about American cinema’s presence in this 10th anniversary of the International Film Festival. Is American cinema over-represented in the face of “smaller” international movies?
Among the 90 films presented this week, 18 are American-directed or co-directed movies. In this list, you can discover big American premieres such as Zombieland: Double Tap (Retour à Zombieland in French) or American Woman, which are entirely American-directed movies. On Thursday, movie-goers will be lucky to see the French premiere of the new Universal studios animated movie, Abominable, produced by both American and Chinese studios.
But during this festival, you don’t only watch new films. Indeed, you can also rediscover cult movies such as Easy Rider and Matrix Reloaded with Lambert Wilson, guest of honour of the festival.

As a conclusion, for this 10th anniversary of the festival, the American cinema leaves ample room for other nationalities, such as European movies that have, finally, the bigger share.
But what about you, would you rather go see American movies or discover European cinema? And do you really think that American cinema is all for show whereas European cinema is more highbrow? Well think again, you might be wrong. All the more reason to come to this enlightening festival…

Gaëlle Herbreteau