Partycrashers: A Video Dispatch From FIDMarseille

Michael Pattison and Neil Young’s inaugural video report, from France’s most eclectically programmed and well-respected festival.
Michael Pattison, Neil Young

Partycrashers is an on-going series of video dispatches from critics Michael Pattison and Neil Young.


As the sun sought slumber behind the Mediterranean in one final, slow-motion plummet, two thick-twanged film critics from North East England sat down to record a chat. There was no script, but their topic was clear: FIDMarseille, France’s most eclectically programmed and well-respected film festival. The idea of a video blog had been posed to us as far back as February, at this year’s Berlinale. Conflicting schedules and a comically limited knowledge of how these things work prevented this, our first dispatch, from happening sooner.

Under its current artistic director Jean-Pierre Rehm, FIDMarseille eschews convention. Now 26 editions old, the weeklong event has no qualms when it comes to programming—often in competition—those medium-length works of an experimental bent that few other festivals seem to touch. As I have written elsewhere, Marseilles itself is a promisingly rough-edged city. For these qualities alone, the fuzzy image here seems appropriate: we want our emphasis to be on content rather than presentation. Speak, so went our presumption, and they will listen.

There are no introductions, there is no wrap-up: the length of our video was determined by an apparent glitch in software. We want this to be an ongoing series of such dispatches. Watch the first, below, to hear our thoughts on the main prizewinners at this year’s FID. Among other things, we discuss Meurtrière, Philippe Grandrieux’s follow-up to White Epilepsy, and why we think Toponomy, by Argentine filmmaker Jonathan Perel, is the best picture of the year. —Michael Pattison


Partycrashers is an on-going feature by critics Michael Pattison and Neil Young of video dispatches from various international film festivals.

Don't miss our latest features and interviews.

Sign up for the Notebook Weekly Edit newsletter.

Tags

PartycrashersFIDMarseilleFIDMarseille 2015Philippe GrandrieuxJonathan PerelFestival CoverageVideosColumns
0
Please sign up to add a new comment.

PREVIOUS FEATURES

@mubinotebook
Notebook is a daily, international film publication. Our mission is to guide film lovers searching, lost or adrift in an overwhelming sea of content. We offer text, images, sounds and video as critical maps, passways and illuminations to the worlds of contemporary and classic film. Notebook is a MUBI publication.

Contact

If you're interested in contributing to Notebook, please see our pitching guidelines. For all other inquiries, contact the editorial team.