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EDITO 2010

It was ten years ago. The first edition saw the light of day in a place that has since disappeared, the (B)éret volatile. What a funny name, it must have been an ancient butchers. It use to be at 14 rue Sénac de Meilhan. Today the front is covered in white and nothing shows. But at that time, front the outside, we could distinguish a tiled room designed to house exhibitions, more often than not empty. To the right and immediately after the front door, you had to go down to the basement via a narrow stair. This second room was spacious. A section of the wall draped in black cloth defined the stage area. An area which butted up against an imposing country style fireplace with its straight legs slightly softened by a curve attaching it to the lintel. The wall rendering added a final touch to this rustic style. In front of the stage, a simply constructed bar and two alcoves. The red clothes on the tables and the lighting cheered the ensemble, relegating into the background a vague impression of an abandoned inn. Throughout the year, it put on mostly shows and concerts. The projection room could be found further on, after a courtyard which you got to through a door very close to the fireplace. in the courtyard, a shady, and on windy days, rustling plane tree. You crossed it to find yourself in front of a bay window that revealed a white cube, rows of chairs, a screen and more often than not a 16mm projector. Not only did the first edition take place here, Grains de Lumière for six years worked the magic of cinema : Brakhage, Mekas, Anger, Len Lye, Snow, Deren, Mac Laren, Richter, Fishinger, Eizykman, Lowder, Kubelka, Iimura, Dulac, Smith, Beauvais, Hammer, Genêt... These sessions are the birth of Images Contre Nature. From there we wanted to know and make known other films.We made a festival without knowing what was waiting for us: dramatic ruptures, which is normal, and encounters of a rare intensity and as extraordinary as that which we had one day with Pierre Clémenti. We met him before having seen his films, during one of his escapades in Marseille not long before his death. During dinner at a mutual friends, he read an apocalyptic text by candle light, at the same rhythm as his voice-over in "A l'ombre de la canaille bleue". Magnificent. And he spat his dentures into the stuffed fowl dish that we had just savoured. What a laugh !
H.B.