Welcome to the International Millenium Festival "Know the Other" 19-29/09

The Concept of the Millennium Festival

The objective of the festival is to cast light on quality documentary
films which deal with subjects essentially linked to the 8 Millennium
Objectives and bring together artists, committed intellectuals, those
engaged in development and the public in order to debate this. The
films that are programmed have in common the authenticity of the
director’s approach and the cinematic quality of the films.

Everything starts with the willingness to open
oneself to others, to make an effort to go beyond face values, to
overcome preconceived ideas and to be interested in the political,
economic, cultural and religious contexts that shape the lives of
others. This step, which can be common to documentaries and development
alike, is essential in order to discover their reality and should in
our eyes precede all action.

The documentary

The film
industry concedes a third-world place in the world economy for the
documentary. It is exploited, folded, and thrown out in the late hours
of television or on unlikely screens of rare cinemas. At first sight,
the situation of documentary makers seems unenviable. At a second
glance – and the gift of double vision is indispensable for documentary
makers – this situation is not as fragile as it seems.

Firstly, because the situation in
which documentary makers find themselves itself incites them to develop
an energy, an astuteness, an a survival instinct to have the vigilance
of a wild cat in regard to the social and political reality and to move
directly in opposition, forever unreconciled.

** (Quotation from Gérard Mordillat in “Images Documentaries” number 26/27)