You hesitated before sponsoring the first Grand West Festival last year. What motivated you to come back and get involved in programming?

This is Lawrence’s inspiration (Editor’s note Lawrence Foreign, director of Paradise in Cinema in Queberland). At first I hesitated because time was running out. I promised myself that even if a festival siren was exciting, I would not give in to them. This is a kind of life problem … there are a lot of exciting things. But I can’t stand doing things halfway. I need to intervene. When something is fun, you have to give it a go. I like to find meaning in what I do and what others do.

A festival that combines film and literature from the American West, it’s nowhere else …

Yes, now a deficiency has been filled. Over the years it has become one of the centers of public interest, shifting to contemporary literature on the American border, not only in New York or Los Angeles, but in the symbolic places known as the West. . The idea of ​​creating a dialogue between great American places and great French places, especially Brittany, is fascinating. Especially if we associate cinema with it as the first gateway to the imagination of the West.

Was it an argument to convince you that this festival was held on a peninsula and not in a big city?

This makes a lot of sense to me. I think Qiberon is a good place to lead the fight for reading and film.

This is also an invitation to travel …

The journey begins with pictures, and there are two ways to fabricate them. The first is to look like in a movie. Read the second one, make them yourself, with our imagination. Travel is an integral part of life and has never left us indifferent. Travel allows you to discover and understand other cultures. But not all of us are lucky enough to go. Going to great American places is a dream that is inaccessible to all budgets. But one can often travel and read well when well.

Is that your passion for America, and especially for the American West?

I’m been reading this culture for a long time, and it’s taking us to amazing places like Jack Kerowac, ​​John Fante, Jim Harrison … Montana or Colorado.

Without you, this short film would not be able to afford famous guests like Cannes Festival director Thierry Fremax or writer Jim Fergus.

Fergus has been a friend for 20 years, and like Douglas Kennedy last year, it seemed normal for him to suggest coming. American writers are interested in Brittany. Jim Harrison has always dreamed of coming to Brittany. This is the wildest part of France, the least domestic … the most ancestral, because there is an army of stories and legends that these extravagant writers love so much. Americans have more memories than they have ever been accused of. They know that they are the descendants of the French, Italians and Irish and that they came by boat passing through Britain. This further clarifies this idea of ​​a Grand West Festival.

Coming to the Grand West Festival, looking to find another America than the big platforms like Netflix and Disney?

When traveling, you can go on the highway or departmental roads. This festival offers small roads. There are so many things to see that are so much more powerful, unexpected and amazing than standard highways. When Theory Fremax, Jim Fergus or I suggest movies or documentaries, they are not blockbusters. America also created a different culture. The Grand West focuses on what we do not talk about: Indians. Not only feathers in the West, but also today. In doing so, we bring another word, and we suggest another America. Finding is fascinating.

Grand West Festival: All Programs: https://www.ville-quiberon.fr/agenda/deuxieme-edition-du-f Festival-grand-west /