Image: Screen shot of Les Zumainsby Lou Rambert Preiss (2017).

The first edition of the TECHNÈS Young Creators Award saw the submission of works making original use of technology or having technology as its theme. Some twenty short films and installations were submitted in the spring of 2018 by students and recent graduates at three universities – UNIL, Rennes, Université de Montréal – and three film schools – INIS, Fémis, Écal – which are members of the partnership. Deliberations were carried out by a jury made up of fifteen researchers and students at the above-mentioned institutions, as well as at the film archive partners of TECHNÈS. In February 2019 the TECHNÈS Award was given to Les Zumains by Lou Rambert Preiss (Écal). Honorable mentions went to Espace, Espaces! by Esther Jacopin (La Fémis) and Survivance: Témoignages de guerre by Gabriel St. Louis, Eliazer Kramer and Arnaud Guillard (Université de Montréal).

What particularly touched the jury about Les Zumainswas its sensitive and positive ideas on the immersive experience, enabling an individual on the fringes of highly normalised society to escape and “begin to live.” The director also offers a sensitive tribute to the world of video games and the cosplay community, thanks to which the character succeeds in proving himself. In the end, what emerges from this masterful fiction is a depiction of virtual reality which goes against the alarmist discourses on the age in which everything will be digital.

With respect to Espaces, Espaces!, what impressed the jury was the professionalism of the directing, the cinematography, the art direction and the acting. The way in which this quirky futuristic story is in harmony with the use of stereoscopy was also appreciated. Both the theme and its treatment, therefore, earned it recognition.

Finally, in the case of the interactive installation Survivance: Témoignage de guerre, what struck the jury were the subtlety of the sound editing and the spatialisation of the sound. This installation demonstrated great finesse not only in its mastery of the technical tools employed, but also on the level of its ideas, principally concerned with the physical and psychological effects of war.