The Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
unveils its competitions
THE FESTIVAL UNVEILS ITS COMPETITIONS
The 47th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival will take place from January 31 to February 8, 2025. Over 8,200 films from all continents were submitted, including nearly 2,000 French productions.
The International Competition will feature 64 films from 49 nationalities.
The Lab Competition will showcase 27 films from 20 countries.
Finally, 52 French films, including 9 international co-productions, will be presented in the National Competition.
37th INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
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This year, the International Competition program aspires to offer much more than a simple cinematographic panorama. It sketches out the living portrait of a world in 64 chapters, 64 films that exposae, question, and invite us to look with a fresh pair of eyes at a reality where everyday life rubs stands alongside the extraordinary.
These short films, whether they make us laugh, struggle or imagine, resonate with our lives, here and elsewhere. They remind us that art is just as much a mirror as it is an escape, a banner that we brandish together to face an ever-changing reality. This program is an invitation to look at the world differently, through the eyes of those who still tell it best. [...]
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THE COMPETITION AT A GLANCE
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47th NATIONAL COMPETITION
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This year’s National Competition spares nothing and no one. With poetic ruggedness, it oscillates between the brutality of a harsh social reality and the freedom offered by narratives in which boundaries between the tangible and the imaginary disappear.
Certain films push the limits of absurdity to the extreme, with chilling dystopias that explore our contemporary preoccupations, as is the case with the very troubling Deux personnes échangeant de la salive (Two People Exchanging Saliva). Others allow the fantasic to infuse in stories profoundly anchored in our time. In this manner, Familiar, Les Solariens (Solarians) or Attention Brouillard (Nemesio Blues) celebrate, each in their own way, the struggle against isolation and exclusion, underlining the importance of building a chosen family and of opening oneself to others. [...]
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THE COMPETITION AT A GLANCE
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For several years now, documentary film has found a choice place within the Lab competition, with many films garnering awards and selections after their visit to Clermont such as Maalbeek (Special Effects Award and Audience Prize in 2021) or La Mécanique des fluides (The Mechanics of Fluids) by Gala Hernández López (selected in 2023), obtaining the César for Best Short Documentary in 2022 and 2024 respectively.
This year’s Lab Competition is no exception to the rule, with documentary proving that it has gained aesthetic autonomy and built an audience. It has freed itself from simple direct cinema, from observation, it has reinvented itself and become a tool of choice for questioning values, conflicts and memory. [...]
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THE COMPETITION AT A GLANCE
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It has been ten years since virtual reality was first presented at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and the technical progress achieved in this medium are astounding.
This year, XR is asserting itself a little more--thanks to our partners Festivals Connexion and Evaveo - with a change of screening room, which will be larger and more conducive to films involving spectator movement.
XR screenings will therefore take place in the Gripel room at the Maison de la culture, with six films in competition. [...]
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THE COMPETITION AT A GLANCE
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