Saint Etienne film festival opens with school screenings

The Saint Etienne gay and lesbian film festival opened yesterday with two showings for school groups.

The screenings were organized with the Ministry of Health and Sport and the National Health Education Institute for secondary school students. Over 100 students attended each screening, which were followed by a discussion with Brahim Naït-Balk, trainer of Paris Foot Gay football club and author of a noted memoir on being gay in housing projects, Pascal Brèthes, president of Paris Foot Gay, and Patrick Revelli of the legendary Saint Etienne professional football team, patron of the festival.

The films shown were two short subjects produced by Canal Plus and the Ministry of Health and Sport: Basket et Maths, about the attraction between two young basketball players, and Pauline, the story of a young lesbian woman living in a village and the difficulties of being accepted by her family and neighbors, and Michel Royer's documents Sports et Homosexualité,c'est quoi le problème ? about sport, homosexuality and homophobia. The documentary features former football international Lilian Thuram, triathletes Jessica Harrison and Carole Péon, football commentator Olivier Rouyer, Olympic medal winner Matthew Mitcham, and many others.

For such a difficult subject, the students were fairly well behaved. The Q&A after the screenings were difficult, showing the importance of the preparation done by teachers before the events. A very positive outcome of this year's school screenings was the decision to move them to later in the year, and to involve teachers in the choice of programming. As is typical in school screenings, the richest exchanges took place at the very end of the session, and even more important, after the screening, when students can approach the speakers directly and less self-consciously.

Info on the day's program HERE.