The 54th Visions du Réel will present 163 films – including 82 world, 11 international, 2 European and 26 Swiss premieres. In total, 37 Swiss (co)productions are presented across all sections of the festival. One of Europe’s core hubs for the exhibition of ground-breaking doc, VdR will run from 21 to 30 April in person and online, with its streaming platform available from 24 April to May 1.
For festival director Emilie Bujès, it is the cinematic aesthetic that will define (and drive) the upcoming 10 days in Nyon. Core components aren’t ‘topics’ or ‘subjects’, rather artistic approaches and auteur perspectives. “It’s more ‘visions’ than ‘réel’ in terms of what we are interested in,” she says. “It’s more people looking at something, rather than the something itself.”
All of which means that the notion of genre demarcation is rigorously tested, allowing festival programmers the freedom to think not only “beyond borders but even without borders,” Bujès says. This point is furthered emphasised by her choice of Special Guests in 2023, two of whom (Lucrecia Martel and Alice Rohrwacher) are generally considered more to inhabit the realm of fiction.
“I think that it’s saying a lot about contemporary cinema when some fiction films are resolutely borrowing a lot from non-fiction, and the other way around,” the VdR director adds. “So I think it’s really about offering this space of freedom and defending the idea that we are not selecting films because we think a subject is important. We are selecting films because we are thinking that the films are important.”
The 2023 selection comprises 163 films across 4 competitive sections (International, Burning Lights, National and Medium/Short) and 3 non-competitive sections (Opening Scenes, Grand Angle, Highlights). Films in Grand Angle also qualify for Audience Award consideration.
“It’s an overseeable number of films that easily allows us to express something quite clear in terms of cinematic ambition, although we also aim for the selection to be as open and eclectic as possible” Bujès stresses. “The kind of cinema that we’re defending is precise both on the programming and on the Industry side.” What’s more, there is an organic wholeness to the selection, she suggests. “The whole line-up together is building an image that I’m proud of. To me it really feels like we are building a house and each brick is an important element. Together they create something else.”
While she resolutely refuses to highlight one film selection over another, Bujès finds it difficult to disguise her delight at having two parts of the new and very personal seven-part feature series by audacious Canadian/Swiss doccer Peter Mettler in her programme (While the Green Grass Grows, International Competition). Mettler was the VdR Atelier Guest in 2020. “There are those directors who, you know, from the beginning know exactly what they’re doing, and take you with them on this marvelous wander” she says, before widening her terms of reference. “When you watch ice-skating, you might be stressed that they’re going to fall. But in Mettler’s case, you know that he’s never going to fall.”
From a Swiss perspective, the festival will present 37 local productions and co-productions. Three are selected for International Competition (Antier noche by Alberto Martín Menacho, Switzerland/Spain; Pure Unknown by Valentina Cicogna and Mattia Colombo, Italy/Switzerland/Sweden, and While the Green Grass Grows by Peter Mettler, Switzerland/Canada) while Swiss Dreamers by Stéphanie Barbey and Luc Peter plays in Burning Lights Comp. Twelve films screen in National Competition.
“Swiss production is very earthy, very exciting right now, with a lot of young people and a lot of young women in particular,” Bujès underlines. “So it feels like, again, a lot of freedom. On one side, very big films that [need] a lot of production of time and work, and [on the other] films that people are shooting along in their home, and then writing and building.” One such example of the latter is the 40-minute La Maison by Sophie Ballmer in National Competition.
Of Argentinian Guest of Honour Lucrecia Martel, Bujès explains how it felt like “the right moment for me to have her in Nyon with her feature documentary [Chocobar] coming up,” and also given how Martel has always experimented with “the real”, albeit within a career more noted for its fiction output. “When I think about [the fiction film] La Cienaga (2001), I don’t really think about the storyline, which is almost secondary somehow. I have much more of a sensation of place, of sound and interiors, of sweat, the smell of old booze, of blood.”
Special Guest Alice Rohrwacher, whose La chimera was recently selected for Cannes Competition 2023, is another director who has juggled both doc and fiction. “It will be interesting to investigate what are, for her, the differences? What are the similarities? To really understand how she approaches each genre…because she’s often shooting in the same place where she’s coming from, [using] this territory again and again. I find her films incredibly inspiring and full of grace, both fiction and non-fiction.”
Bujès adds of Atelier guest, Swiss director Jean-Stéphane Bron: “It is so relevant and exciting to welcome Jean-Stéphane, who is an essential figure in the Swiss film industry and international non-fiction making. It was an obvious choice and I am sure the audience will be happy to discover or rewatch his films, as well as to listen to him during his masterclass; he speaks very well about his work.”
The Visions du Réel director further refers to the festival home of Nyon on Lake Geneva as both “a pain and a treasure.” The town has limited screening venues, and very little else is going on around festival time, she says. But this is, of course, a blessing. The docfest dominates the entire picture-box location for ten days, and little other than documentary is on the cultural agenda, with enormous attention lavished both on the films and on the guests in attendance. What’s more, access to industry and festival personnel is very easy.
“Why are we trying to make a festival of this size in a town that has just two cinemas and barely any kind of space to organize anything?” she ponders. “Yes, somehow it seems absurd, but then again, I think that it is also what makes it somehow very special.”
