Frédéric Boyer is the new Head of Programming at RIFF, replacing Giorgio Gosetti former head of Venice Days program as RIFF´s main programmer. Other members of the programming team are Hrönn Marinósdóttir, Guðrún Helga Jónasdóttir, Ana Catala and Giorgio Gosetti.
RIFF will be held for the 17th time this year from 23d of September to 4th of October. Boyer has attended RIFF several times in the past decade. In 2015 he was among panellists that examined the role of programming in today’s film festival culture. The discussion aimed to explain the decision-making processes at work during the act of programming and to reveal the ideas of their curators.
„I´m very happy to work for RIFF that is already a well-established festival and well known across Europe. RIFF is a fantastic way to showcase Iceland and its talents and creates an essential network for Icelandic filmmakers,” Boyer says.
The team and Frédéric are now starting to make their selection of films, which, in addition to features, includes shorts, genre, and animation, which Frédéric says he always finds particularly interesting. He also mentions the RIFF documentary section A Different Tomorrowwhere he would like to add more films about artists to make cinema more interactive with other art forms.
„Working with the RIFF programming team, I want to program films I like – as simple as that. I try to bring my sensibility to the program, as well as sometimes to introduce controversial topics. Just showing a film as such is not that interesting – the main thrill is to create an interaction between the filmmakers and the audience. Movies can give a great platform to important topics such as the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements, and environmental issues. The topics of the films are important for sure, but even more important is the quality and how the films make us feel. When this goes hand in hand with the symbiosis between the audience and filmmakers. we have the perfect combination,” Boyer says.
„I would like the always amazing Reykjavik audience to be excited and to trust our programming so they will choose to see the festival’s films, even if sometimes they don’t know anything about them. The idea of surprising the audience is great, and we would like to evoke both curiosity and discovery,” Boyer says.
Boyer has been the Artistic Director of the Tribeca Film Festival since 2012, and of the Les Arcs European Film Festival since 2009. Prior to that he was the Artistic Director of the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes for two years, after 6 years as a senior programmer in the Fortnight’s Selection Committee.
