Fidmarseille - Festival International Du Documentaire Marseille, France

We know (do we know?) that recently the frontiers of the documentary genre have been pretty well modified. In softening its lines and in erasing its limitations, the FID has enabled this genre to become more porous. Why? For a childish whim? For the pleasure of confusion for the sake of confusion? Of course not. On the contrary, it’s rather out of loyalty to the reality before which the documentary is in awe. For the sake of justice too: to make a place for heterogeneities, for the different, for the wealth of multiplicity and for the intelligence of discovery. This is documentary cinema’s job: to invent for each situation the best film translation of a language and a reality heretofore unimagined. This demands nothing less than an art: the art of testimony. And this art would take advantage of all resources at its disposal. Whether these resources come to it from the cinema—from its techniques and its history—or whether they come to it from the arts, sciences or politics doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is the accuracy and relevance of the translation. To multiply these translations in order to increase our affinity with the things of this world, such a project, it’s understood, is a work in progress, both open and encouraging.

The documentary genre is at the center of the FIDMarseille’s artistic choices. Championed like an art of testimony with no requirement as to format, the festival welcomes films and artists who play with the transversality of the arts. Three years ago, the festival took the decisive step of welcoming in the official selection fiction films alongside documentaries.

In 2010, FIDMarseille presented about 170 films, for the most part these were films making their international premieres in a rich program made up of the official selection (international competition, national competition, competition of first films), parallel screens, round tables, etc.