« I do not share your ideas, but I will fight to death so that you can express them ». This famous sentence wrongly credited to Voltaire, could be one of our mottos at L’Étrange Festival.

There is no creative inspiration or budding talents outside of the margins and bad reputation. This stance has probably explained for a long time the event’s « un-respectability » with a certain press, a certain power or certain institutions.

Laughable acknowledgement, 20 years later, considering the profusion in France of soulless events or the exploitation by institutions and festivals who flirt with the genre, or those, running out of steam, who discover in hindsight some already confirmed artists.

The sometimes painful and often difficult process which constitutes each year the construction of this most expected event, is always justified by only one precious idea: the Urge.

The urge to blow you away. To make you discover other possibilities. To satisfy you, move you, disturb you and push you to your possibly hastily drawn limits. To enjoy together an utterly wild and inconceivable artistic panel. To give you and our guests the fleeting sensation to be « at home » in a haven of creation, exchange and pleasure.

And once again this year wa have some serious leaders. Judge by yourself : Rutger Hauer, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Liliana Cavani, Nicolas Winding Refn, Julien Temple, Ching–Po Wong, Tom Savini, Yoshimasa Ishibashi, Jim Bidgood, Lucky McKee, Sono Sion, Richard Stanley, Koen Mortier, Michael R.Roskam, Agnès Merlet, Xavier Gens, Juan Felipe Orozco, Takeshi Koike, Jeff Nichols, Kôji Wakamatsu, Daniele Ciprí & Franco Maresco, Jonathan Caouette, Winsor Mc Cay, Claire Devers, Paul Verhoeven, John Ford, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Arrabal, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Satyajit Ray, Elem Klimov, Jacques Tourneur, Luis Buñuel, Jean Rollin...

See you shortly !

L'ÉTRANGE FESTIVAL