Abstract
Mainly based on interviews with former director Moritz and his wife and collaborator Erika de Hadeln, this chapter tells the early history of the Visions du Réel Festival, appeared in Nyon (Switzerland) in 1969. It analyses de Hadeln’s programming policies characterized by left-wing ideas, films from the Soviet orbit and controversial topics. Reflecting on the canonical influence of programmers in 1970s studied by Marijke de Valck and Jeffrey Ruoff, the chapter reconstructs the personal networks that allowed de Hadeln to become part of the European cultural elite of the 1960s and make of Nyon a template for other documentary film festivals. Finally, it retraces his career further in the festival circuit (as artistic director of Locarno, Berlin and Venice), facilitated by his contacts in the international cinematographic realm.
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- 1.
The quotes in this chapter from Erika und Moritz de Hadeln are based on 250 hours of oral history interviews that the author conducted with them for his book Moritz de Hadeln: Mister Filmfestival (Jungen 2018).
- 2.
Stephen Follows of Film Data and Education in 2013 counted 9706 festivals which have run at least once in the last 15 years. https://goo.gl/9CBkY3.
- 3.
Interview with the author, Cannes, May 22, 2014.
- 4.
You won’t find any reference on the festival’s website and sites such as IMDb don’t even reference the prize winners of the first 25 years.
- 5.
The festival was founded in 1959 by students from the humanities of the University of Florence. It was the first festival for documentaries and the “birthplace” of Cinéma Vérité .
- 6.
Interview with the author on December 20, 2010, in Gland, Switzerland.
- 7.
Interview with the author on June 7, 2010, in Gland, Switzerland.
- 8.
Ecran 20: 22 (December 1973).
- 9.
In the early 1970s police often confiscated celluloid prints and destroyed them, that is, of films such as John Waters Pink Flamingo (1972) in Zurich.
- 10.
Interview with the author on May 3, 2010, in Gland, Switzerland.
- 11.
Interview with the author on May 3, 2010, in Gland, Switzerland.
- 12.
Three million Swiss francs are equivalent to $3.2 million and €2.4 million.
References
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Jungen, C. (2020). Forging a Cultural Elite: Nyon and the Age of Festival Programmers. In: Vallejo, A., Winton, E. (eds) Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Framing Film Festivals. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17320-3_9
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