The four day European Film Festival organised by the European Union Delegation to The Gambia concluded on Saturday night featuring a captivating mix of films from Germany, Spain, Poland and France presented at the Alliance Francaise de Banjul. The festival which attracted enthusiastic audiences from various backgrounds concluded with the screening of: En FanFare, a joyous and inspiring French film directed by Emmanuel Courcol and starring Benjamin Lavernhe and Pierre Lottin as long-lost brothers. Screenings also included: “Chopin-Chopin” from Poland, “Soy Nevenka” from Spain and “Sieger Sein” from Germany.
The festival brought together cross-cultural dialogue and cinematic exchange with selected movies showing different sides of European culture while also addressing different societal topics that resonated with the Gambian audience.
European Union Ambassador Immaculada i Cortes thanked all partners including diplomats of EU Member states in the Gambia and Senegal for making the festival successful and engaging.
“This festival is very important for us,” Ambassador Cortes remarked. “When you talk about diplomacy, people think about politics, trade or cooperation but there is what we call cultural diplomacy. It is people-to-people cooperation. And for partners to cooperate, they need to respect each other and through arts and cinema people know each other, they connect and directly, explain stories and present them in different ways but the same feelings,” she said.
Julie Regnier, cooperation officer at the French Embassy in Banjul expressed delight with the audience turnout describing it as a manifestation of a smooth cultural exchange between the Gambia and Europe.
“It also goes to show that our cooperation is beyond big programmes enhancing the capacity and the development of The Gambia, but we are also connecting with Gambians and sharing bits of our different cultures and sharing moments that are universal around these films,” Regnier said.
Alliance Française director Marion Ray-Essien, reiterated that the aim of the festival is to share European cultures and cinema with Gambian audiences.
She said the four day period attracted wide audiences from all walks of life. “Every evening came with a different crowd, different stories and different communities coming together. It was really exciting for us and I learned a lot about other cultures because the way the audience receives the movies is very different depending on where we came from, how we grow up, our education, our culture etc. And after the films, we all gather and confront our views. So we all learned a lot,” director Marion explained.
She reiterated Alliance Francaise’s commitment to continue creating a conducive atmosphere for the promotion of arts and culture as well enhancing cultural exchanges.
