Fribourg International Film Festival
Fribourg International Film Festival
Presentation
The Fribourg International Film Festival takes place every year in Fribourg (Switzerland). Its aim is to promote quality films and thus contribute to ensuring cinematographic and cultural diversity in Switzerland as well as throughout Europe. In this spirit it selects works essentially from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The FIFF programmes a cinema of inventiveness and poetry as the expression of a conquered freedom – sometimes at great cost. By getting away from the landmarks and writings of western cinema, the films selected by the FIFF require of the spectator the disposition to be troubled by images, stories and ideas that may not be conformist for a Swiss public.
This is how the Festival contributes to diffusing “another look” and therefore a better comprehension of the various cultural and social realities in the world. In this respect the FIFF is the Swiss reference event and enjoys wide renown on the international scene.
History
In 1980 the films from Africa, Asia and Latin America are only very rarely distributed in Switzerland. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Helvetas, the secretariats of the major aid organisations in French-speaking Switzerland organise a circuit of seven films coming from these continents to be shown in various cities of the area.
The founding idea is simple: allow the cultural riches of these three continents to be shown. The success of the film circuit makes the organisers want to carry on with the experiment. The Third World Film Festival is born.
In 1986 its roving days are over. The Festival settles in Fribourg, where the showings have been the most successful. With the roving days the parish halls are also a thing of the past. The Festival takes up quarters in the city’s movie theatres. The first official competition is organised to bestow the Aid Distribution Award.
In 1992 the Festival becomes an annual event. In 1993 UNESCO awards it the Label of the World Cultural Development Decade. In 1998 the event becomes the Fribourg International Film Festival.
