INTRODUCTION
TO THE MASTER CLASSES

This year, eight free and open-to-the-public Master Classes will be held on the VCU campus at the new Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at VCU. Simultaneous interpretation headsets will allow everyone to participate in the discussions regardless of English or French proficiency levels. The ICA Auditorium has 204 seats.

Human rights, social justice, mental health and aging, environmental activism, immigration, reconciliation, artistic freedom and expression are some of the themes weaved throughout the selection of films in this year’s Festival. These two days of Master Classes permit a better understanding into how directors, screenwriters, actors, and artist-technicians create ingenious ways through the visual and aural power of cinema to communicate important issues facing our world today while captivating and entertaining the viewer.  Discussions in the Master Classes also reveal from whom artists have drawn inspirations and with whom they elaborated, or pushed even further, certain styles and cinema genres.

The Master Class series starts up with Belgian director François Troukens whose personal career path leading him into professional filmmaking is definitely not the norm.  His entry into writing, publishing and filming continues a trajectory, to a specific style of French cinematic storytelling.  One will see during the Master Classes several links, influences and a sort of visual interconnectivity between a new generation of filmmakers like Troukens, Voisin, Tacchino and Simonet with celebrated directors such as author and director José Giovanni, directors Jean Becker, Jean Renoir, Bertrand Tavernier, Pierre-William Glenn, Gérard Krawczyk, and stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne.

Director, screenwriter and reporter Nicolas Champeaux with director Gilles Porte will carry on the important, critical work of militant, engaged, “citizen camera” filmmaking.  Champeaux and Porte will unveil the creative genesis as well as their innovative storytelling methods behind their poignant documentary, The State Against Mandela and the Others: generated from the audio recordings of the entire judicial proceedings in 1963 and 1964 against Nelson Mandela and his fellow freedom fighters.  The trial which ultimately set into motion, and finally realized twenty-seven years later, the end of Apartheid.

Gilles Porte will also elaborate on the artistic and technical choices he decides to make when working as director and/or cinematographer on documentaries, features, animations or virtual-reality films.

The director Jérôme Enrico will cap the Master Class series with a presentation of the remarkable career of his father, director Robert Enrico, and a special screening of his new documentary Robert Enrico, A Brief Passage on Earth, a true a Master Class in itself and an excellent way to tie-in together these two days of discussions on filmmaking.

So, mark your calendar, reserve your free seat, grab your simultaneous interpretation headset at the ICA, and then enter into the transformative worlds of cinema.

Your Festival’s Master Classes are so beneficial because they provide direct interaction with the creators and artists.  Each Master Classes gives us critical insights and real knowledge about so many aspects of filmmaking from the professionals themselves.  It changes, for the better, the way we understand, appreciate and critically view films.  They are packed with crucial hands-on information that traditional academic film courses simply cannot provide. (From a former student attendee)