Villa Medici Film Festival | 2024 Edition
The Villa Medici Film Festival returns from 11 to 15 September 2024 for its fourth edition!
Since its creation in 2021, the Villa Medici Film Festival has been exploring the links between film and contemporary art, setting out to discover new kinds of cinematic discourse. The fourth edition of the festival will be held from 11 to 15 September 2024 and aims to adopt a groundbreaking approach by encouraging encounters between pluralistic works that question, revolutionize, deflect, or re-enchant our relationship with images.
THE PROGRAM
The Festival is divided into three sections: the International Competition, the Focus films and the Gala evenings in the Piazzale.
- The International Competition
The festival spotlights twelve films in competition, of all lengths and genres (documentary, fiction, essay), made in 2023-2024 by artists and filmmakers whose works stand out for the singularity of their subject matter or form. Screenings of films in competition take place during the day, in the presence of the directors, in the Michel Piccoli cinema and in the Grand Salon of the Villa Médicis.
- The Focus program
The Focus section is dedicated to out-of-competition films. It features screenings and encounters to share special moments with members of the jury, CARTE BLANCHE, and artist filmmakers as part of CONTRECHAMP programming.
Gala evenings in the Piazzale
In parallel with the films screened during the day, festival-goers will enjoy nightly open-air screenings on the Piazzale, in front of the historic façade and gardens of Villa Medici, of recent films – including previews – but also restored classics of cinema.
THE JURY
The 2024 jury brings together three personalities from different artistic backgrounds:
Clément Cogitore is a French artist and filmmaker, trained at the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg and Le Fresnoy.
Winner of several awards, including the Grand Prix du Salon de Montrouge in 2011 and the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2018, he was also a Fellow at the French Academy in Rome in 2012. In 2015, his first feature film Ni le Ciel, Ni la Terre won an award at Cannes and was nominated for the César for Best First Film. His work for the opera Les Indes galantes in 2019 has been widely acclaimed. In 2022, his second feature Goutte d’Or won an award and was shortlisted to represent France at the Oscars. Since 2018, he has been a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Vimala Pons is a circus artist and actress. After studying art history at Paris 4 and film history at Paris 8, she continued her training at the Cours Florent, the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique de Paris (CNSAD), and the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC).
Since 2013, Vimala Pons has distinguished herself in independent and auteur cinema, collaborating with such renowned directors as Antonin Peretjatko, Bertrand Mandico, Christophe Honoré, Jacques Rivette, and Alain Resnais. In 2023, she played in Stephan Castang’s Vincent doit mourir, and will appear in Baya Kasmi’s Mikado, Victor Rodenbach’s Le Beau Rôle, and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Le Voyage essentiel.
Rasha Salti is a researcher, writer and curator of art and cinema. She has co-curated several film programs, including Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s until Now (MoMA, New York), and Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin). She is currently commissioned editor for La Lucarne, Arte France’s experimental documentary program. Rasha Salti also co-curated the exhibition Past Disquiet with Kristine Khouri. In 2022, Salti was one of the co-curators of the 8th Triennial of Photography in Hamburg, and a member of the curatorial committee for the 12th Berlin Biennale.
The jury will award two prizes: the Prix Villa Médicis for the best film and the Special Jury Prize for a singular film that caught the jurors’ attention. These prizes, worth €5,000 and €3,000 respectively, also offer filmmakers the opportunity to take up a residency at Villa Médicis.
PRIZE WINNERS
Saturday, September 14th, the awards ceremony for the fourth international competition of the Villa Medici Film Festival took place on the stage set up on the Piazzale.
VILLA MEDICI PRIZE FOR BEST FILM 2024
PEPE (2024) by Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias
A voice that claims to be from a hippopotamus. A voice that does not understand the structural perception of time. A voice that from trance, goes across the languages of a historical event. “Is that my sound that comes out of my mouth?” Or specifically, what is a mouth?” The only thing he knows for sure is that he is dead. The first and last hippopotamus killed in the Americas.
JURY PRIZE 2024
REAL (2024) by Adele Tulli
As human beings made of flesh, we now spend most of our time in a digital landscape, seeking happiness, wealth, relationships, knowledge, and experiences. What is today’s reality made of?
SPECIAL MENTION
FAMILIAR TOUCH (2024) by Sarah Friedland
A coming of (old) age film, FAMILIAR TOUCH follows an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in assisted living as she contends with her conflicting relationship to herself and her caregivers amidst her shifting memory, age identity, and desires.
SPECIAL MENTION
MAN NUMBER 4 (2024) by Miranda Pennell
A confrontation with a disturbing photograph found on social media triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker.
SELECTION COMMITTEE 2024
The selection committee for the 2024 edition of the Villa Medici Film Festival is composed of:
Lili Hinstin is a programmer and artistic festival director. In charge of cinema at Villa Medici between 2005 and 2009, she became a programmer for the Cinéma du Réel festival from 2010 to 2013. Lili Hinstin then became artistic director of the Belfort Film Festival (2013-2018), then of the Locarno International Film Festival (2018-2020). She is the director of programming for the Biarritz International Festival – Nouvelles Vagues.
Julian Ross is a researcher, curator and writer based in Amsterdam. He is co-programmer of Doc Fortnight 2024 at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and co-programmer of the upcoming 69th Flaherty Seminar. He is an Assistant Professor at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, where he is co-director of the interdisciplinary research centre ReCNTR. He joined the selection committee of Villa Medici Film Festival in 2024.
Valentine Umansky has worked for various visual arts institutions and is currently curator at the Tate Modern in London. Between 2015 and 2020, she held positions in the United States at the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. She is also a curator and author.
Jean-Marc Zekri has been for many years the director of the Reflet Médicis art-house cinema in Paris, where he organizes a wide range of events focusing on repertory films, often previously unreleased, and films from emerging cinematographies. He is also a member of the board of the endowment fund of the Parisian cinema association La Clef. He has been a member of the Quinzaine des Cinéastes selection committee since 2023 and joined the Villa Medici Film Festival selection committee in 2024.
THE TEAM
The Villa Medici Film Festival Organizing Committee is composed of :
Albane Dumas is coordinator of the Villa Médicis Film Festival.
Lili Hinstin is a festival programmer and artistic director. In charge of cinema at Villa Médicis between 2005 and 2009, she became programmer for the Cinéma du Réel festival from 2010 to 2013. Lili Hinstin then became artistic director of the Belfort Film Festival (2013-2018), then of the Locarno International Film Festival (2018-2020). She is currently Program Director of the Biarritz International Film Festival – Nouvelles Vagues.
Laurent Perreau is a writer and director for cinema and television, and also stages images for the Rencontres d’Arles.
Sam Stourdzé specializes in images and the relationship between art, photography and cinema. He has curated numerous exhibitions and written several reference works. Since 2020, he has been director of the Académie de France in Rome – Villa Médicis.
Véronique Terrier Hermann is a teacher and research program manager (Beaux-arts de Nantes, Institut pour la photographie, Lille). Her publications include Jeux sérieux, cinéma et art contemporains transforment l’essai, Head/Mamco, 2015.
With the kind collaboration of Mathilde Henrot for Piazzale programming.
FESTIVAL PARTNERS
Partner of the Villa Medici Film Festival
Partners
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→ Download the press release.
→ Find out more about the 2021, 2022 and 2023 editions.
PHOTO CREDIT:
Still È A QUESTO PUNTO CHE NASCE IL BISOGNO DI FARE STORIA, Constanze Rhum
Image A Fidai Film: © Kamal Aljafari Productions
Image Boomerang: © Maider Fortune Image DAU:AÑCUT (MOVING ALONG IMAGE): © Adam Piron
Image E a questo punto che nasce il bisogno di fare storia: © Constanze Ruhm
Image Familiar Touch: © Sarah Friedland
Image How Love Moves: © Pallavi Paul
Image Man Number 4: © Miranda Pennel
Image Pablito: © Monte y Culebra
Image Real: © Locarno FF, Adele Tulli
Image The Perfect Square: © Gernot Wieland
Image The Retreat © Gelare Khoshgozaran
Image Braguino: © Clément Cogitore
Image Origin of the species: © Ben Rivers
Image Avant le déclin du jour © Ali Essafi
Image Heart of a dog © Laurie Anderson
Image Mon Fardeau © New Europe Film Sales
Image APIYEMIYEKÎ? © Ana Vaz Image BORJ EL MECHKOUK © Driss Aroussi Image GALB’ECHAOUF © Abdessamad El Montassir
Image Être Cheval © Jérôme Clément-Wilz
Image Un passage d’eau © redshoes & I. I. I. I.
Image WORLD/ANTIWORLD: ON SEEING DOUBLE © Haig Aivazian
Image Allégorie citadine © Alice Rohrwacher et JR
Image L’histoire de Souleymane © Boris LojkineImage
Image Paris, Texas © Wim Wenders
Image Cloud © Kyoshi Kuorosawa
Image Eat The Night © Caroline Poggi et Jonathan Vinel
Image Maria – Montessori, La Nouvelle Femme © Léa Todorov
Portrait of Clément Cogitore © Kenza Wadimoff
Portrait of Vimala Pons © Rainer Erain
Portrait of Rasha Salti © Christoph Terhechte
Portrait of Lili Hinstin © Lucile Delzenne
Portrait of Julian Ross © Merel Hegenbart Photography
Portrait of Valentine Umansky © African Artists Foundation (AAF)
Portrait of Jean-Marc Zekri © Jean-Marc Zekri
Festival Film © Margherita Nuti and Gori Claudia