Festa Major

Jean-Baptiste Alazard lives in the Pyrenees where he directed La Terre des paumés, a documentary series comprised of La Buissonnière (2013), Alléluia! (2016), L’Âge d’or (2019), and Saint Jean-Baptiste (2021). His latest film, Festa Major, shot in his village, won the Public Choice Award at FIDMarseille. 

A word from the selection committee:
Festa Major shows a four-day celebration which - every year for over a century - has turned the village of Fillols upside down and shaken up its daily routine. But what if the celebration was not an outlet so much as a logical consequence of the year itself? Be it a hallucinated logic, one dictated by Jean-Baptiste Alazard’s voice, who like a wiseman, records with his microphone the odd thoughts and poetic fragments, just before footage becomes a memory and editing takes over the feeling of the moment. A resident of Fillols, Jean-Baptiste Alazard rekindles the feeling of celebration and community in Alleluia! (2016) and Saint Jean-Baptiste (2021) and, this time, joins in with the other residents and passing revellers. The director-dowser does not get overwhelmed by the crowds or the commotion of the after-parties: Festa Major is primarily driven by a feel for natural light, and the shots alternating between isolated faces and collective elation, between group songs and confessions poured over a drink. As the four days go by, and much like the participants, viewers lose their bearings. So we might as well follow the director as he invites us to “go through life as one would a dream”. 
― Vincent Poli