The Editorial
Editorial 2025
Irena Bilic
Founder, director and General Delegate
« The point today is not to reveal social cinema, any more than to stifle it with a formula, but to strive to awaken in you the latent need to see good films more often (may our film-makers forgive me this pleonasm) dealing with society and its relationship with individuals and things. »
« An Andalusian dog howls, who died? It’s a sore test of our cowardice, which makes us accept all the monstrosities committed by cowardly men on earth, when we can’t bear the sight of a woman’s eye cut in two by a razor on the screen. Is that a more terrible sight than a cloud veiling the full moon? »
Text spoken by Jean Vigo at the Vieux-Colombier, June 14, 1930, at the second screening of Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou.
Dear friends, filmmakers and spectators, dear partners,
In 2025, we celebrate the twentieth edition of the Europe by Europe Festival.
Nearly 1,500 European films, from the origins of cinema to today, unseen or rediscovered, were shown, presented, and defended; meetings with classics, masters, contemporary filmmakers, and emerging auteurs, who arrived in Paris from all over the continent; 150 interns were accompanied; wonderful collaborations with Parisian cinemas where the history of auteur cinema was made; juries among the most qualified, sometimes chaired by legends of European cinema. And a loyal, passionate team. And friends, without whom nothing can be achieved.
The general trait that characterizes the recently produced contemporary films, organized into three competitions — the SAUVAGE Prize, the PRESENT Prize, and the SAUVAGE CORTO Prize — is their closeness to life. The vision of their authors is serene, analytical, detached, and devoid of any penchant for tragedy.
A striking contrast to the worlds of David Lynch, Aleksandar Petrović, Lucian Pintilie, and Alexandre Sokurov, who, each in their own grandiose and unique way, see the world in inevitably gray tones, or lost in lies, manipulation, and ultimately, fatally, crime. And this is universal.
In these dark, absurd, and cruel times, one theme has emerged as a guidepost in the fog — Tell Me Lies, after the title of Peter Brook’s film.
“Mad people don’t know they’re mad“, August Strindberg would say. But our mission is to experience, identify, and show the cinema of tomorrow !
Because we have both hope and certainty that films change the world.
It’s time to salute all those filmmakers who put years of waiting, hope, effort — their whole hearts — into their films.
Great screenings and meetings,
