The festival opened with a tangible mark of fidelity as Carmen Maura, accompanied by the splendid Natalia Verbeke who wanted to see what the Cinemed is like, performed the launching in her own sparkling style. Fidelity again with Karin Albou's short film with its Tunisian vibrations, and more fidelity with Emmanuel Mouret and his'choral' film L'Art d'aimer (The Art of Loving). A novelty for us was the screams of young girls homing in on Gaspard Ulliel! In short, an opening evening to be remembered even if what followed was very impressive.

Andréa Ferréol's astonishing career from Truffaut to Fassbinder, Olivier Py and his "Mediterranean" views, the very rich cinematographic career of the Catalan Ventura Pons, Benoît Poelvoorde's epic witticisms when he promoted Anne Fontaine's new comedy, the elegant seriousness of Pascal Elbé and Sami Bouajila when they talked about their careers and the great Stefania Sandrelli in Montpellier to accompany the retrospective devoted to her first mentor, Pietro Germi, and to present Christine, Cristina, her first title as a director, a film that deserves to be distributed in France.

But at the same time as these known faces that we love, there were all the makers of the films in the official selection who were happy to show their work in Montpellier, certain to find an attentive and demanding public. Some of them won awards, others made us want to see their next films. And this is of course one of the reasons for there to be a 34th Cinemed. We look forward to seeing you in October 2012!

Jean-François Bourgeot
Director

The 2011 festival in figures
This year, the festival totalled 78 000 entries, much the same as in 2010 (minus the some 8000 schoolchildren who attended the Young People's Festival that was not held this year but will take place in the first quarter of 2012). The 2011 figure includes the 410 lycée pupils who came from all over France for the Lycée Classes and the some 2000 visitors on the 1st Cinema and Audiovisual Trades Day that opened the festival. The 33rd Cinemed also welcomed 240 official guests, 288 professionals and 101 journalists. In addition to the 234 films on the programme, there were 2 exhibitions, 4 conferences and numerous round tables. Finally, 14 prizes were awarded for the feature film, short film and documentary sections, with a total value of over €50,000 in cash and services. The Development Grant Days on 27 and 28 October attracted 20 film projects and 5 grants were awarded (total value €35,000 in cash and services). And thanks to all our guests, professionals and journalists, sponsors and partners not named individually here but who made the 33rd Cinemed a success.

See you at the 34th Cinemed from 26 October to 3 November 2012!

2011 prizewinners: click here.



Festival photo gallery: over 100 stills available for the press.

Festival daily video news (by ESJ): 8 videos from 21 to 29 Oct.