I can’t believe this festival is already over… one week and I feel as though it just started. At the same time, I can hardly remember what it was like before I had ever been to l’Entrepôt, which has come to feel like a second home to me. I love waiting in the lobby, anticipating the start of the screening.

I loved flashing my press badge, as childish as it sounds, and looking out for other journalists… we were such an international group, and as I waited for screenings, I could witness conversations between Spanish, German, English, French, and American journalists and filmmakers.

What I loved most of all was the fact that we were so close to the art. The filmmakers were always happy to answer questions and to sit in the sometimes half-full auditoriums with the journalists, witnessing our first look at a piece that had become their life for weeks, months, or years.

I’ve been to several film festivals before, but, as so many festivals nowadays, most films shown were mainstream releases that would hit the box offices in a matter of weeks. With the Rencontres Internationales festival, I had the opportunity to see films that would have otherwise remained a mystery to me. Sure, some of them were a little bit difficult to understand, but thanks to the thematic screenings, it was possible to come to understand them eventually.

One of the best decisions the organizational team could have made: organizing films into groups such as Link/Unlink, Utopia Propaganda, Soliloquy, Deconstruction Reconstruction, and Proto Fiction. The audience knew from the very beginning what to expect from the messages that the artists were trying to convey.

In a traditional cinema, a viewer can glean at least some of the meaning from a simple first viewing. Art cinema is more difficult, and without training in film studies, an audience can be lost or confused by some of the films. The screening themes did away with this confusion.

The only thing I wish I had done differently would have been to attend some of the associated programs at the Swedish and Canadian Cultural Centres. The festival board really took the international theme to a new level by including these programs, but because they were in the middle of the afternoon, they were difficult to attend. They seem to have had good reviews though, so maybe next year’s festival will move some of these screenings later in the day, allowing more people to have time to attend.

Most film festivals, especially festivals in Europe, really become a part of the city that is hosting them. As an underground festival, Rencontres International became a part of Paris in a much less obvious, but equally important way. I saw how the festival became a part of the people who worked and frequented l’Entrepôt: one night, when a regular screening was cancelled there because of an injury to the hand of the projection operator, many people who had planned to attend the film decided instead to come to Rencontres Internationales.

Over by the Louvre, where the festival had set up their office, locals ducked their heads into la Laboratoire to see the art exhibit and to find out more about the festival.

Sure, it didn’t invade like Cannes does, completely restructuring the city for two weeks and bringing stars, paparazzi, and body guards, but something changed in my Paris during the festival, and I’m going to be sorry to see it go.