I finally got a chance to sit down and post about my project in France. It took some time to edit and unpack the whole experience. 

Last year I was asked to judge the 2013 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and they also commissioned me to work on the festival’s poster for 2014 festival. Why an illustrator judge for a film competition? For the past 29 years, Antoine Lopez, co-founder of the festival, created the wonderful tradition of asking an artist/designer/illustrator to jury and create the poster for the following year’s festival. I was proud to be one of the few Americans to have been chosen and to join past poster artists: Brad Holland, Dave McKean, Lorenzo Mattotti and many other international artists. 

To my surprise this festival is the second largest film festival in France, after Cannes, with over 100,000 annual attendees. Clermont-Ferrand is a cool little city in the middle of the Auvergne region of France about 250 miles south of Paris. It is filled with medieval dark grey buildings and cathedrals made out of volcanic rocks from the ancient volcanoes that still surround the city, and, of course, incredible food. I overdosed on galettes (similar to crepes but made with buckwheat flour) and unpasteurized cheese from the local market!

During the week-long festival in 2013, I watched over 90 short films in the “Maison de la Culture” theatre, met some incredible film-makers from around the world and learned about a whole new art form—short films. I’m greatful to the jury of film directors who kindly accepted me as one of their peers. Thankfully the discussions about the films had many correlations to my experience judging illustration contests. And at the end of the festival there was a grand Oscar like ceremony where I had the honor of announcing some of the winners. 

So after returning from 2013 trip, I started to work on the poster. The initial inspiration for the poster was based on the Mexican short film that won the top Grand Prix called “Para Armar un Helicoptero.” This film directed by Izabel Acevedo was an entrancing live action film set in an apocalyptic Mexico City. It was about a boy and his bike and his struggle for electricity and hope. There was something about this boy’s ingenuity and creativity of keeping the lights going that directly related to the idea of a filmmaker and their filmmaking journey. Flies were also a recurring element in her movie and it just stuck with me. 

Thank you to Antoine Lopez for the perfect amount of art direction and freedom for this project. 

The solo show took place in a beautiful round glass building in the middle of the city. Because of certain restrictions I decided against shipping original work and instead made oversized prints. During the week, I did some lectures and signings at the show. I met many of the locals and school kids. I couldn’t have done it without my handlers, Xavier and Calmin. And special thanks to sweet Isabell who set up all the class visits and talks during the show. And to the many translators (especially to Thibaud) who made me sound much more eloquent in French. 

I thought the opening show was just going to be me and a few attendees from the festival. But it turned out to be a much larger event than I could have imagined. The caterers had designed the food around Americana theme serving mini burgers, mini hot dogs, mini apple pies, popcorn and donuts. On top of that they even had a five-piece band playing American songs all night. It all seems like a distant dream right now but it was an incredible night to remember.