The 30th edition of the Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF) will take place from November 1 to 10. Interested from its beginnings, in 1995, in television and cinematographic productions, the event has since diversified, exploring formats such as interactive cinema and augmented reality.
The Geneva International Film Festival was a pioneer in its field, with its ambition to offer a global vision of audiovisual production. This year for its 30th edition, the event will offer more than ninety works, films, series and immersive experiences.
The GIFF has, from its beginnings, accompanied the growth of the phenomenon of television series. “Festivals today have a prescriptive role in the field of series which is becoming more and more important,” explains the director of the event Anaïs Emery in the Vertigo program on October 10.
For this 30th edition, the festival is taking a further step in this direction. It establishes a prize dedicated to the narrative virtuosity of Swiss series. This prize is in addition to that devoted to tomorrow’s series, where ten international titles are in competition.
In most cases, the festival will only broadcast the first episodes of the series in theaters. The rest of the seasons will be available online for festival-goers through personalized viewing links.
Two exceptional guests
This year, the GIFF also welcomes two prestigious guests. American filmmaker Ava DuVernay will be in the spotlight with the screening of several of her films including “Middle of Nowhere”, which won the award for best director at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012. “Ava DuVernay, it’s very interesting to have her at GIFF Already, she travels very little to Europe And then, she has a body of films very linked to important societal movements for America (…) I think that. her work takes on a special dimension She will be with us during the week of the American election. must of our festival”, underlines Anaïs Emery.
>> Listen to the interview with Anaïs Emery in Vertigo on October 10:
The other distinguished guest is Professor Sarah Kenderdine, who directs the experimental museology laboratory at EPFL. She conducts cutting-edge research into immersive experiences for galleries, libraries, archives and museums. The professor will participate in a conference on the cinema of the future and will present a series of works linked to her research.
This year, the GIFF will also offer a dive into the history of Swiss digital creation as part of the “Swissphoria” program. This will be an opportunity in particular for the public to discover or rediscover “Impression de la Suisse”, a 360° film made in 1984 by Ernst Heiniger. It was shown continuously at the Lucerne Transport Museum until 2002.
Monumental fresco
Festival-goers will also be able to admire the “Panorama of the Battle of Murten”. The monumental 1000 m2 fresco by German artist Louis Braun was scanned, notes Anaïs Emery. It will be possible for the public to zoom in on certain details of the work.
The original painting was presented during Expo.02, inside the monolith that emerged from Lake Murten. The “Panorama of the Battle of Morat” has undergone restoration since its presentation at the national exhibition. The work is kept in an army park.
Finally, the festival will pay tribute to the master of Swiss cinema Pierre Koralnik, known for his portraits of artists, his variety shows and his fiction films. Many artists from the 1960s passed in front of his lens: Françoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, James Baldwin and Paco Rabanne.
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Geneva International Film Festival (GIFF), from November 1 to 10, 2024.
