Created in 1962 by the French Union of Film Critics as a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, La Semaine de la Critique focuses on discovering new talents, revealing first and second feature films. Such directors as Jacques Audiard, Alejandro González Iñarritu, Ken Loach, François Ozon, Wong Kar Wai or in more recent years César Augusto Acevedo, Julia Ducournau, David R. Mitchell, Santiago Mitre, Jeff Nichols or Rebecca Zlotowski were discovered by La Semaine de la Critique.
La Semaine de la Critique materialises each year its role as talent scouter in a selection of 10 short films and 10 feature films presented during the Cannes Film Festival. The film selection committees, composed of critics who are members of the French Union of Film Critics, hence reveal the very unique universes of emerging talents. The jury bestows four prizes each year: the Grand Prize and the French Touch Prize of the Jury for feature films, the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for short films and the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award that highlights a male or female acting performance in one of the films in competition. Our partners also give awards: the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution, the SACD Award, the Canal+ Award for short film. The selected debut feature films also compete for the Caméra d’or.
Besides the venue in Cannes, La Semaine de la Critique’s scope of action includes accompanying the selected short film directors through Next Step. The directors attend a one week workshop in December, with the purpose of helping them step further towards feature film.
La Semaine de la Critique also conducts screen education actions year round, especially for the younger audiences, secondary school and high school pupils from the regions of Provence Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Île de France, but also from Germany.
The objectives of La Semaine de la Critique
- To highlight first and second features directed by filmmakers from all around the world.
- To enable French critics to fight for and explore young film creation the best they can.
- To support today’s revelations in order to have them become tomorrow’s talents.
- To pay great attention to short and medium length films, first steps in the career of a director.
History1
The story of La Semaine de la Critique started in the spring of 1961, during the fourteenth Cannes International Film Festival. Upon the initiative of the Association Française de la Critique de Cinéma2 (French Association of Film Critics), the Festival screened The Connection by Shirley Clarke (USA), an adaptation of the theater play by Jack Gekber produced by The Living Theatre. The film was part of a less popular wave of films, usually overlooked by production houses as well as film festivals. To have its screening at the Cannes Film Festival, ruled by producers and not very open to emerging tendencies, was a true phenomenon.
Following the success of the screening of The Connection, Robert Favre le Bret, Artistic Director of the Cannes Film Festival, decided, in agreement with the Film National Center, to repeat and amplify the experience. He entrusted the Association Française de la Critique with the programming of the Salle Jean Cocteau (in the former Palais) for an entire week on the occasion of the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. The film critic and director Nelly Kaplan invented the name La Semaine de la Critique.
Since 1962, a lot of changes have been brought about. Short films have now their own Competition and Special Screenings have enhanced the diversity of the selection of La Semaine de la Critique, which still screens very few films in order to offer them a greater visibility and a better support during the Festival. Most of the screenings take place at the Espace Miramar3 today.
However, the ambition remains the same: to enable French Film Critics to support young film creation the best they can and to continue to explore and reveal filmmakers from all around the world.
Chris Marker, Denys Arcand, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jean Eustache, Philippe Garel, Barbet Schroeder, Ken Loach, Merzak Allouache, Romain Goupil, Leos Carax, Amos Gitai, Wong Kar-wai, Arnaud Desplechin, Benoît Poelvoorde, Guillermo del Toro, Jacques Audiard, Kevin Smith, François Ozon, Andrea Arnold or Gaspar Noé all started at La Semaine de la Critique.
Being a true discoverer of new talents helped La Semaine de la Critique bringing to light and awarding films like Amores Perros by Alejandro González Iñarritu (who went on to direct 21 grams, Babel, Birdman, The Revenant), Respiro by Emanuele Crialese, Depuis qu’Otar est parti (Since Otar Left) by Julie Bertuccelli (which received the César for Best First Feature Film), Or by Keren Yedaya, Me and You and Everyone We Know by Miranda July, XXY by Lucía Puenzo, Meduzot (Jellyfish) by Etgar Keret & Shira Geffen, Adieu Gary by Nassim Amaouche or Take Shelter by Jeff Nichols.
1. This page includes parts of Vingt-cing ans de « nouvelles vagues » by François Ekchajzer that we would like to thank
2. Today the Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma (French Union of Film Critics)
3. The Salle Jean Cocteau at the former Palais no longer exists, screenings in the Palais des Festivals have been taking place at the Auditorium Jean-Louis Bory, in the Salle Debussy and more recently in the Salle Buñuel where people with Press, Marché and other credentials can still go to for a daily screening of films in competition at La Semaine de la Critique.
| Relive 50 years of Discoveries |
Some dates and numbers
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1946 1st edition of the Cannes International Film Festival |
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