Filme Tout Court: Account of a First Collective Experience in Villetaneuse

Invited as a jury member for a smartphone short film competition in Villetaneuse, I discovered how technical mishaps and collective adjustments transform an event into genuine shared learning.

A Saturday in December at the Annie Ernaux Media Library

On Saturday, December 13, 2025, I traveled to Villetaneuse to serve on the jury for the finals of the “Filme Tout Court” competition, the first smartphone short film contest organized by the city’s cultural department in partnership with the L’Écran cinemas of Saint-Denis and Plaine Commune. I had been approached by Gishly Didon, head of the city’s cultural department, and Noélia Perez-Rodrigo, City-Media Library coordinator, both to lend my legitimacy as founder of the Pocket Films Festival—one of the world’s first festivals dedicated to mobile phone films, created in 2005 with the Forum des images—and to support this inaugural edition of an event still finding its footing.

Preliminary email exchanges had already raised some fundamental questions. Aymeric Chouteau, cultural mediator at L’Écran cinemas and fellow jury member, had rightly highlighted the issue of jury composition: three white men aged 40-50, which raised questions of representativeness vis-à-vis the young participants. He had also expressed reservations about the proposed evaluation criteria, particularly regarding “filming,” which was difficult to judge fairly without having attended all the workshops. For my part, I had anticipated that with a small number of films, our role as jury would be more about celebrating all the work accomplished than establishing a strict hierarchy. We would invent things as we went along.

What happened that day perfectly illustrates what it means to collectively build a cultural experience, with its unexpected turns, constant adjustments, and the rich learning that results for everyone involved.

When technology fails: inventing solutions together

Upon my arrival at the Annie Ernaux Media Library, the projector in the Zaïma Hamad auditorium—a beautiful conference room with genuine symbolic value as a cinema space—had stopped working, even though it had been functioning that very morning. Noélia suggested falling back on a small meeting room upstairs, but I felt it was important to preserve the original setting. The auditorium is not merely a technical space: it is a symbolic venue, a place that tells young filmmakers their work deserves to be shown in conditions worthy of cinema.

I therefore helped the team urgently search for an alternative solution. I know technical matters very well too. Fortunately, an external projector was available, and I helped them position it correctly. The sound problem remained: no RCA mini-jack cable to connect the computer to the portable speaker they had on site. The speaker happened to be a Vonyx brand, which I know well since I use them myself for my traveling projections. I was able to help them connect the computer via Bluetooth. We needed to move quickly, and my knowledge of the Vonyx system allowed us to get the whole setup working rapidly, within the very limited time we had before the event began.

This technical anecdote may seem minor, but it reveals an essential dimension of cultural support. Had I not been there, the screening would have taken place, but not at all with the same symbolism. What distinguishes a simple video broadcast from a genuine cinematic experience often comes down to these details: image quality, sound amplitude, spatial configuration. The material setting contributes to the symbolic recognition accorded to the creations.

We then precisely framed the facilitation method. My experience with this type of event allowed me to make proposals that would work, because I had already tested them.

Supporting without substituting: the expert’s stance

During the screening and the discussions that followed each film, I played the role of initiator while taking care not to monopolize the conversation. After each screening, I launched discussions with the young filmmakers, asking questions about their creative process, their aesthetic choices, the difficulties they encountered. Gradually, Noélia took up this mediation method, intervening more, then Aymeric from L’Écran also found his place and asked questions of the young people.

The films presented addressed powerful themes, chosen exclusively by the participants: school bullying, neighborhood fights, daily life in Villetaneuse. Most had been supported through the filmmaking process. One film in particular struck me with its formal maturity: Nassim’s, who had made everything himself. His choice of wide-angle to film tram journeys created beautiful lateral tracking shots that allowed viewers to discover the city from a cinematic angle. When I asked him about it, he explained that this choice was deliberate: to show the city of Villetaneuse in daily life, from every angle.

I was impressed by the young people’s ability to master editing tools. One of the filmmakers explained that she had edited her film in fifteen minutes with CapCut. This application, like other contemporary digital tools, enables creative autonomy that did not exist just a few years ago. Previously, the workshop leader would edit the films because they were the only one who knew the software. Today, young people can truly be authors of their works from start to finish.

Deliberation: inventing a non-humiliating recognition system

The mayor of Villetaneuse arrived during the event, and at the end of the screening, he gave a speech. I suggested to the other jury members that we take advantage of this moment to deliberate. Time was short, as the audience was waiting for us in the room, but I insisted that everyone be able to express themselves and that the discussion be genuine. We established a prize ranking, made a small modification after discussion.

Drawing on my experience of similar events, I also proposed that each prize be commented on by a different jury member, which would allow for personalized recognition and highlight specific aspects of each film. This proposal was immediately adopted.

But the most formative moment came during the prize ceremony itself. We had established a ranking from one to five, and I could clearly see that the fifth prize was experienced as humiliation by the young people concerned. It was predictable, but you had to live through it to truly understand. I then pointed out that rankings were not at all appropriate in this type of context. Aymeric immediately picked up on this by proposing that for the next edition, there should no longer be first, second, third prizes, but thematic awards: Best Performance, Best Direction, Best Screenplay... It was an excellent idea, and it beautifully illustrates collective intelligence: my experience allowed me to identify the problem, and Aymeric proposed a creative solution.

The mayor of Villetaneuse seized the opportunity of this joyful event we were creating on the spot, and he played “drum rolls” before each prize. The experience of all involved and full commitment allow for improvisation, because we have solid foundations.

Sound: a neglected but crucial technical issue

A recurring observation in the films presented concerned sound quality. Although the young people had been supported in making their films, the sound often remained inaudible or poor quality. This is a classic problem with amateur films, but simple solutions exist.

I explained that it was not about using a boom mic—impossible with a phone in this kind of project—but about working on staging so that the sound is good. Concretely, this means: bringing actors closer to the camera in dialogue scenes, choosing quiet filming locations, paying attention to wind direction outdoors, asking actors to speak loudly enough. These are staging constraints that can be naturally integrated into the creative process.

These techniques were unknown to the people who had led the workshops, which is entirely normal: it is neither their profession nor their professional experience. This is precisely where a filmmaker’s intervention can provide real added value. For the next edition, which will likely take place in two years, this technical dimension can be integrated from the creative workshops onward.

What this experience teaches us

Several lessons emerge from this day. The first concerns the value of experimentation. As I told the organizing team: you must experiment, it is by experimenting that we learn. This first edition had imperfections, but it is precisely by doing things that we discover what works and what needs improvement. What matters is having dared, having done.

The second lesson concerns the role of the outside expert in this type of project. My presence was not merely that of the expert giving opinions on films. That dimension actually represents a very small part of what was at stake. The essential thing was to participate together in something socially constructive, through artistic creation activities. Artistic creation, in this context, is not an end in itself: it is a tool for social construction. This construction happens in the moment itself, in the way one engages with the situation, in how one contributes.

The third lesson concerns the stance of support. For Noélia, who was entrusted with this project, it was also about stepping out of her comfort zone, doing new things. Noélia even acted in two of the participants’ films. There is a whole learning process that happens through concrete action, through personal engagement, through measured risk-taking. This is how professional skills are built in the field of cultural mediation.

The expert as facilitator of symbolic conditions

Without wanting to put myself forward, I can clearly see that my extensive experience with this kind of setup allowed this event to reach a completely different level, and this played out in the moment. Not that I am indispensable, but because I was able to immediately bring, in the situation, practical solutions and symbolic frameworks that would have taken much longer through successive trial and error.

For me, there was a stake, almost a test: that of a first constructive collaboration with this territory and this team. The question was whether my intervention could truly create added value, beyond the external legitimization that my presence provided. The answer is clearly positive: from within, I was able to bring my experience so that very quickly, in very little time, something powerful could be built and work even better.

Perhaps this, ultimately, is the role of expert support in participatory cultural projects: not to substitute for local actors, not to impose pre-established models, but to help create the conditions—technical, symbolic, relational—for the collective experience to emerge in all its richness. The young people of Villetaneuse made their first short films, they presented them in a real auditorium before their families and professionals, they received constructive feedback on their work, and some of them will see their films screened at L’Écran cinema in Saint-Denis during an “Open Screen” session. This is what matters: having opened together a space of possibilities.