This Tuesday, February 4, 2020, Tip & Shaft and the production company PoPPop privatized the Grand Rex for a brand new screening. If sailing film festivals are customary, competition sailing film festivals did not exist until then. Yesterday, there was a grand premiere, a film evening featuring the major French and international races and regattas, the sailors and their crews. On the program, 4 hours of screenings, 4 exclusive films, an incursion behind the scenes of these events and in the life of skippers?!
Between each screening, a quick one - too quick for our liking, but the time was compté?! - interview of the skippers, stars of the day from an admiring audience, brought us a deciphering of the images. But above all, for the first time, the spotlight was on these cameramen who get to the heart of the action, on these scriptwriters who convey emotions and on these producers who allow us to take a look around.
Bateaux.com was a partner of this first edition - we look forward to next year - and invited 20 of its readers to this screening. We share with you Antoine's testimony, who makes you relive this salty interlude in the heart of the Parisian winter.
"Last night, the Fisherman's Boulevard looked like a pontoon boat in La Trinité on a Saturday morning. The same sailors, but in blue parka instead of the waxed/boots combo. You could recognise the beached heads of the Parisian sailors and those of the pure Bretons lost in the capital for a sailing evening.
The number of bikes parked in front of the Grand Rex shows that the Parisian sailor is a man who cares about the environment and likes to move quickly. It's a good thing we're here for a festival of competitive sailing films with the guarantee of speed as the highlight.
The Rex was packed to the rafters, 2?200 people when Pierre-Yves Lautroux (PYL) and Pierre Marcel, producers of the event, took to the stage like superstars to launch the program.
Le Figaro for appetizers
We started the session on a film retracing the 50th anniversary of the Figaro and the 50th edition of the race in a humorous way. A montage with a nice rhythm and anecdotes. It lacked a bit of technique to understand the mistoufles of this 50th that PYL evoked on the podium as the heist of the century in June 2019, but that we didn't appreciate to its true value in this film that was a little too much about the race. Michel Desjoyeaux's last mocking sentence to the youngsters in the class left the room twisted with laughter to wait for the rest.
Extreme voltage in F50
By way of transition, we experienced in Billy Besson's helmet a cash movie about an absolutely breathtaking Sail GP regatta with absolutely monstrous 50 kts crossovers. No special effects. The sail on board as if we were there and it's so good to see on a screen of this size. You could hear the room holding its breath in the gybes, proof of the stunning effect we were looking for.
Experience on an Ultim
We followed the story of the interior of the Brest Atlantiques with selected rare and unusual tracks such as the quarrels between Caudrelier and Cammas. Charles Caudrelier comes out of a coast of much greater sympathy than that of Franck Camas, who shows his true face as an ocean racing killer, NEVER leaving anything to chance or to his co-skipper's interpretation if he doesn't agree with him. Apart from that nothing new, Gitana flies over the 40 kts race under magical sunsets filmed by Yann Riou. It's almost too clean, too perfect. We'd probably already seen too much on Instagram..
Girls to thrill us
After a beer at the Carré, forgiveness at the Rex bar, which looked like the Carré de la Trinité-sur-Mer on a winter training night, we went on to what will remain the emotion of this evening. Maiden's film at the Whitbread 89/90. The magic of a female crew that revolutionised Anglo-Macho ocean racing. A hugely topical film about feminism at sea against the class leading man. A great American production which will make history through the emotion it emanates. The audience blew their noses several times, crying their eyes out as they watched the ordeals these girls went through.
The English journalists of the time took it for granted and did their mea culpa in the face of such determination. One wonders if we too were thinking like them when we saw Tracy Edward leaving with his "girlfriends" around the world. What a joy to see these IOR machines filmed from the inside with a rare talent and a grain of film that gives an emotion that no longer exists. We dried our tears and went home with big dreams.
Bravo?! And look forward to the next edition..."
