Festival du Court Métrage and La Grande Station Jaude 2028

The Festival du Court Métrage is the biggest international film festival dedicated to short films. It is held in February every year in Clermont-Ferrand, and is the second largest film festival after Cannes, in terms of audience and professional attendance. You’ve probably heard of the Cannes film festival, very famous for the artistically enlightened and ‘beautiful people.’ The main difference between the two is that the Festival du Court Métrage in Clermont is open to the public, and Cannes’ festival is by invitation only. (That makes ours better, of course!)

For the 40th anniversary of the festival this week, over 100,000 attendees and 3,500 industry professionals descended on Clermont Ferrand to view, show, or judge international short films, with this year’s highlighted country being Switzerland.
7,000 films are submitted every year for inclusion in the judging. The 600 chosen films are short in length, 10-30 minutes long, and are shown in clusters of four-to-five films in theaters all over the city.

There were even a few short films from the University of Oklahoma included in the international lineup! Small world. And tickets are cheap – a carnet of 15 tickets was about $44 USD.

Did we BUY tickets? Yes.

Did we GO? NO.

I read the descriptions of all of the films in the catalog….and, IMO, they were ALL JUST STRANGE. There’s just not enough Charles Ratterree (mon ami artiste in Greenville) in me to spend time on the esoteric meaning of it all! (Sold our tickets. My intuition, however, WAS validated by friends who did attend!)

However, there was a big celebration last night in the city center with 15,000 of our closest friends to cap off the final night of the film festival – “La Grande Station Jaude 2028” was a huge alpine-ski-themed party with live music, braziers, ice carving, DJs, and, of course, le vin chaude (hot wine).

I can verify that the gigantic party went on until late into the wee hours – we are a block from the city center, and the skylights in our flat don’t hold out THAT level of noise. 🙂

All in all, I give it an “A+” for making CF a cool place to live.

Speaking of movies – I went to see The 15:17 to Paris, directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie is based on the autobiography The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train, and Three American Soldiers. The film stars the three actual Americans, played by themselves, as they stop the 2015 train terrorist attack. I recommend!

You are able to see American movies in English (with French subtitles) at certain times in certain theatres — you just have to search for “VO” in the listing, indicating that the film is shown in Version Originale.

Snow, gray, rain, snow, gray, rain…..I love winter more than most people, BUT…