Of Cannibal Holocaust To Paranormal Activity passing through The Blair Witch Project Where [REC], the found footage, both a staging device and a full-fledged sub-genre, is now known to film buffs, and even to the general public. For better and sometimes for worse, with its shaky images and interchangeable films. As the
Paris International Fantastic Film Festival, “Often considered as the poor relation of horrific cinema due to its budgetary and aesthetic economy, the found footage nonetheless has a rich history ”.
For its 10 years, the PIFFF has concocted a beautiful anniversary program, with the best of the news (The Sadness, Bull, Mad Dog), the worthy representatives of French genre cinema (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Gaspar Noé, Jan Kounen), a special night, “forbidden” screenings and, therefore, the documentary The Found Footage Phenomenon, directed by Sarah Appleton and Phillip Escott, and scheduled Sunday at 9.45pm at the Max Linder.
Make the viewer believe that what they see is real
If the found footage ventured into other genres, such as comedy (Project X) or superheroes (Chronicle), he remains very attached, ankle to the body, to horror. Why ? ” The found footage wants to make the viewer believe that what they see is real, true, explains the British director Sarah Appleton. However, this works well with horror, the purpose of which is to scare. The more you are invested in the film, in the characters, the more you will be afraid. “
If she had already seen several films found footage, the trigger came for Sarah Appleton in the early 2010s with the discovery – and the shock – of Megan is missing by Michael Goi, a new film in France that has been talked about again in 2020
and traumatized TikTok. It features the disappearance and kidnapping of two teenage girls, and “shows you to see the reality behind the news item,” comments the filmmaker. You never know what’s going on in this kind of thing, and you don’t want to know. Megan is missing shows the invisible, the impossible ”. She then decides to go back up the thread (m), and to understand why, how and by whom these films are made. They are almost all in the documentary, which also tells the little story behind the “phenomenon”.
Before “The Blair Witch Project”, there was “The Last Broadcast”
If the references of the genre are, of course, mentioned, Sarah Appleton prefers to talk about the pioneers, films that have moved lines and images. Like Ghostwatch, a BBC documentary that aired in 1992 where reporters from the channel visited a haunted house in London. As for War of the Worlds Orson Wells in 1938, or the Prohibited documents by Jean-Teddy Filippe in the 1980s, viewers believe in it. “They used house hosts, the rules of television, reacts the documentary filmmaker. And it works, even today. “
The Last Broadcast, him, follows the hosts of the show Fiction or Reality go to the forest to investigate Blair’s witch… oh no, the New Jersey devil. Released a year with The Blair Witch Project, the film Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler did not have the same exposure, and even remained confidential – it was released on DVD in France in 2001. Yet everything is already there for the author of The Found Footage Phenomenon : “They play with the documentary aspect and question the notion of truth, whether or not we can believe the speakers or even the directors. They are also among the first to use digital cameras, which makes The Last Broadcast a witness of his time, of the end of the 1990s ”.
The “found footage” is not dead
Among recent releases, Sarah Appleton recommends Canadian film Afflicted, released in 2013 and unfortunately unpublished in France. The story of two friends who film their trip around the world, until one day it takes an unexpected turn. “It’s a bit the best of found footage, with a clever use of new technologies, while being an original approach to the myth of the vampire. “
The last voucher found footage ? “I must admit that, when I started documentary a few years ago, I believed that the genre had reached the end, with for example the meta
Found Footage 3D, says Sarah Appleton. Then Rob Savage came up with Host, his horror film on Zoom. And his neighbor, Dashcam, also offers a creative approach to found footage, via a Facebook Live. I think that the genre will always be renewed, with new technologies, and, there, I think very strongly of virtual reality. “