Clavier: “Independence” is absent from cinema

Film director Christophe Claver was a guest at the Mediterranean Cinema Festival in Tetouan as an intervenor in a group of discussions and dialogues that shed light on the seventh art, within the framework of the twenty-ninth session of this artistic event.

Christophe Claver said that festivals represent the only forum in which his cinematic works are presented, adding that he noticed in his country that the approved programming in the most important festivals is sponsored by a limited number of people, the same ones who are also present in the committees for financing cinematic works and the press specialized in following up on cinema.

He stated that he notes, on the other hand, that “small festivals reprogram films that were previously shown in major festivals, which greatly affects the issue of diversity, as the same names and the same filmmakers are repeated, which does not allow for the identification of new faces and filmmakers despite the distinctiveness of their works.” Artistic and unique.”

The French director highlighted, in a meeting on the sidelines of the festival’s activities, that if the concept of independent cinema means all cinematic works that are not produced by major groups and huge companies, then this term applies to most of the films produced, indicating that there is no independence in cinema, and that This concept has a meaning that goes beyond the producing entity to become a signifier of the cinematic works created by their creators in complete independence from popular styles, fashion, momentary fashion, and the moral and societal standards imposed by popular taste with its narrow standards.

Regarding the dimensions that the writings of critic and thinker Eric Homer take in his cinematic work as a young director, Claver said that they have the same status as the writings of filmmakers and thinkers whom he admires and appreciates, starting with the Lumière brothers, and that they are also equivalent to the status and importance of New Wave productions.