How do you prepare a film festival in times of pandemic ? In joy and good mood. Firstly because June is far away, and by then bars, restaurants, museums, cinemas, theaters, dance halls will once again welcome their cherished audience (positive thinking), but above all because working around films of less than four minutes from all over the world is a real joy.
That said, in concrete terms, what the daily life of the two festival coordinators looks like, Anne-Sophie and Cheyenne? Here is the course of a Very Short (or rather Very Long) day.
8 AM. While Anne-Sophie reads her e-mails from home, Cheyenne, also a babysitter in her spare time, takes the children to school. Then direction the hyper luminous office of the Point Haut located in the agglomeration of Tours. If the rear base of the festival is still in the 20th district of Paris, the HQ is based this year on the banks of the Loire River, because it's pretty.
9 AM. Anne-Sophie arrives in her Modus, already three times out of the garage, and Cheyenne struggles on her bike, braving the light foggy rain typical of the Tourangeau winter.
9:10 AM. Passage through the great hall of Point H^ut where artists in residence are rehearsing their next show. Clubs fly, fireworks explode, actors warm up, musicians sharpen their instruments, all under the astonished eyes of the two coordinators who enjoy themselves before reaching their office. On the agenda: e-mails, phone calls, video-conferencing to present the Festival to cities around the world (and there are many of them).
10:30 AM. Exchange on Discord with Paul, the great chief of technique, and Marc, the director and founder of the Très Court. The first stayed in Paris (say, when are you joining us, Paul?) while the second moved to a city called Die, in the Drôme this summer. Which makes us a funny ParisToursDie.
11:30 AM. Photo session around the organic teddy bears engaged this year to be the actors of the visuals of the festival swarming here and there. The teddy bears are very professional: they are easy to handle, and even accept to be swallowed on occasion.
12:30 AM. The long-awaited lunch hour around a large table (very feminine) with the Polau teams (Arts and Urban Planning Department), town planners, architects, designers, creators of board games... We talk mainly about cooking recipes, works in progress, and a little bit about the Covid, it must be admitted.
1:30 PM. Coffee, and get to work. Cheyenne is preparing the next posts for Instagram, while Anne-Sophie is thinking about the development of our Paroles de Femmes platform and is starting to organize our 48h Très Court Environnement Challenge.
2:30 PM. The two coordinators start dreaming about the next jury of the festival and on behalf of the next president (Maïwenn? Agnès Jaoui? Julia Ducournau? Blanche Gardin?) with glitter in their eyes (it stings a bit).
3 PM. While Cheyenne drinks her 10th coffee of the day, Anne-So smokes her 10th cigarette. It's bad, but it restores energy.
4 PM. Anne-Sophie is so focused on her computer that she presses the keys on her keyboard with great fury and intensity. As for Cheyenne, she answers the emails sent by the many Nigerian directors who wish to participate in the festival but cannot afford to. Cheyenne is happy to remind them that registration is free, and will remain free.
5 PM. Short break to watch films already registered. They are a little less numerous than last year (the health crisis has passed by) but between 2,000 and 3,000 films are waiting at the gate! Fortunately, a great pre-selection team is in charge of seeing, rating and commenting on the Très Courts. Spoiler: some are nuggets.
6 PM. The day is over, it's time for Anne-Sophie and Cheyenne to go home and lead the video conference with the members of the pre-selection team who, during the aperitif, come to discuss the films in particular, and life in general.