Inter-Action: La Peniche Cinema, Paris, France

Tess Martin’s travel blog:

This is my last entry on this tour! Last night was the Paris screening of the Inter-Action program (actually only half of the program due to time restrictions). It was pretty awesome. This event was held at La Peniche Cinema, a cinema….on a boat! ‘Peniche’ means canal boat in French. The boat is moored in l’Oucq canal, inside Parc de la Villete, a very modern park with lots of red blocky buildings, sculptures and open space. Very ‘unlike Paris’ as my friend put it. La Peniche is run by Gabriele Brennen and they show the most short films in the whole of France!

The event was also sponsored by AFCA, Association Francaise du Cinema d’Animation, and was in fact, part of the 10th Fete du Cinema d’Animation organized by AFCA. AFCA is an organization that was born independent of ASIFA France, the French chapter of the international animation organization, but within the last 10 years the two have joined forces. They now organize a festival every year during the month of October across the whole of France. And our event was in fact on Oct 28th, official international ‘animation day’.

The Seattle animations were screened first, followed by a selection of French films – mostly from a studio called Planktoon, that makes their own films, but also does ads and idents for television stations. This produced an interesting mix of independent vs. commercial animation, and some remarked on the irony that it was the Americans who were making experimental work, and the French more commercial work. But amongst the French films there was one real gem – an independent film by French/Japanese filmmaker Momoko Seto called ‘Planet Z’. I’m still hazy on the details, but apparently she got a residency and producer through an Annecy Film Festival competition to make this film. Lots of timelapse photography, some of very very, small things. Watch the trailer below, it’s awesome.

Juliette from AFCA and Gabriele from La Peniche led the Q&A after, and I got a lot of interesting questions about techniques, distribution methods, and motivation. There must have been about 40 people there, and it was probably the most enthusiastic audience of the tour. Thank you to Gabriele and Juliette for the hard work!