The 14th Tashkent International Film Festival (Uzbekistan) took place from September 14 to 18, 2022. More than two hundred films made up the selection. Forty national delegations were present. Martine and Jean-Marc Thérouanne, director and general delegate of the Vesoul International Asian Cinema Festival, were part of the French delegation.
Martine Thérouanne was a member of the International Jury, chaired by the Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi who won an award at Cannes, Venice, etc. The competition was made up of eighteen films by young directors from film schools in Canada, Israel, Pakistan, from India, Italy, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Iran, Romania, Poland, Georgia, China, Belarus, Moldova, Uzbekistan, … All had the hope of winning one of the three prizes awarded at the closing ceremony.
Jean-Marc Thérouanne was a member of the jury for the Pitch session organized by the Institut Français, the French Embassy and the CNC. Twelve film projects by Tajik, Kazakh, Russian, Uzbek and Kyrgyz filmmakers had been submitted to the French Institute. The twelve directors were present to defend their projects with talent, passion and conviction. All hoped to obtain one of the three scholarships allowing them to partially finance their future cinematographic work. It was a heavy responsibility for a member of the jury to judge a film or a project.
The Tashkent International Film Festival was of great artistic richness. Sixty film lessons were organised. Each of the films screened, in the various cinemas of Tashkent or at the cinema house of the Uzbekistan Film Agency, were presented by the national delegations followed by question-and-answer debates.
The opening and closing ceremonies were of great artistic originality, combining the art of cinema, audiovisual, theatre, circus, music (Western or Eastern classical, pop music and electro, etc.) , … Her Excellency the Ambassador of France to Uzbekistan, Mrs Aurélia Bouchez, chaired, on the red carpet, the French delegation composed of Laurent Oriol, cultural adviser, Emmanuelle Faucilhon, audiovisual attaché, Fabrice Marache, director (Blacks, the Hussars), Samuel Aubin, director and writer (Istanbul forever, Le Pommier rouge d’Almata-Ata), Martine and Jean-Marc Thérouanne.
Representing your country abroad provokes a lot of emotions.
Legendary Japanese director Takeshi Kitano and French director and producer Luc Besson were among the many stars honored at the opening and closing ceremonies. Luc Besson came to present the co-production project with Uzbekfilm and Tadjikfilm of Yusuf Razykov’s next film (Grand Jury Prize FICA Vesoul 2006) Navoi et Jami and give a lesson in cinema to a young and attentive audience.
The most remarkable meetings of this 14th Festival were, for Martine and Jean-Marc, the possibility of exchanging with these two monuments of world cinema. Luc Besson expressed his admiration for the longevity of the commitment of the two leaders of FICA Vesoul: “29 years, few people have this tenacity”. The meeting with Takeshi Kitano was intense.
Those with Ali Khamraev (Without fear – Bez Stakha) and Elier Ichmoukhamedov (Les Amoureux – Vlyublennye), great masters of Uzbek cinema, whose works were presented during the 29 years of the International Festival of Asian Cinemas in Vesoul, were overwhelming. The cinematographies of Central Asia, in particular Uzbeks, were a great discovery.
The Tashkent International Film Festival deserves its nickname of “Pearl of the Silk Road”.
