The science fiction festival taking place this weekend in the city of the Dukes gives pride of place to Godzilla, who is celebrating his 70th this yeare birthday.
Le Figaro Nantes
The snout of monsters sneaks into Nantes, just in time for Halloween. To wear the colors of the 25e edition of the Utopiales festival, this face swells to the titanic dimensions of kaijusis colored with the robotic patina of the cyborgs and covered with the magical clay of the golem. A colorful procession, which represents only a fraction of the 2024 programming of the great French mass of science fiction, inaugurated Wednesday at the Cité des Congrès in Nantes.
Open until Sunday evening, November 3, the cultural event this year revolves around the theme “harmony”. A word at the crossroads of the two eternal facets of this bipolar festival, shared between the world of science and that of the imagination. “With the idea of harmony, we felt the need, in these troubled times, to have a keyword that explicitly evokes positive and pleasant things”indicates to Figaro Roland Lehoucq, president of Utopiales. Also an astrophysicist at the CEA Paris-Saclay research center, the festival captain has been at the helm of this flagship event of Nantes cultural life since 2012, a balancing act if ever there was one. “Each round table, each conference and projection illustrates this meeting between the arts and sciences poles” he summarizes.
Great Carnival of Monsters
And what better link between these two worlds than Godzilla? The Japanese creature opened, if not the red carpet, the Nantes festival. The monster did not devastate the city of dukes – nor the city of congresses. On the contrary, the giant reptile graciously installed itself there on the occasion of the screening of the restored version, in 4K, of Ishiro Honda's seminal film, broadcast at the festival for the 70e anniversary of the release of this pioneering feature film. “Harmony is also dissonance; when we talk about peace, we cannot ignore the war – or the monsterexplique Roland Lehoucq. In this case, the kaijusthese monsters from Japanese cinema, represent from the outset the monstrosity linked to the consequences of the explosion of the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . A drama still particularly vivid in 1954, when the first film was released Godzilla». Three other feature films from the saga, an exhibition and a show are on the festival program, available online.
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Another key figure of this edition, more human this time, the American designer Emil Ferris is also in the spotlight at Utopiales 2024. The designer presents a preview of the sequel to her graphic novel What I like is monsterswinner of the Fauve d'Or at the Angoulême comics festival, in 2019 – and a fine harvest of other international prizes. The great carnival of monsters present at the Utopiales is also enriched by debates on cyborgs and the border between man and machine, projection of the unknown Golem (1967) by Jean Kerchbon or a presentation on critters – and other insects – evolving in the face of climate change, presented by film students from ESMA, and those from the Oniris veterinary school.
Finally, because the contemporary world can also take on worrying aspects, several debates deal with political monsters“in the light of the return of fascism in Europe”. Diagonally, or more directly, like the round table organized on “the extreme right at the gates of power”. An abundant program embroidered, of course, with questions more expected within the framework of a science fiction festival: debates on quantum balance or the very concept of an absolute weapon, practical questions on the functioning of generational vessels …And, of course, harmony explained by Star Wars.
