This is year four of cooperation between the Animation Class Kassel, the Malagasy film festival Rencontres du Film Court (RFC) and the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival. If you open the catalogs of 2014/15/16 you will find introductory texts on the origin of Malagasy cinema, how it was razed to the ground and how it was reinvented around 10 years ago. You will find information about Laza, the filmmaker and producer who came back to his home country after studying in Paris, finding nothing than a cinematographic wasteland and launching a film festival (RFC) that became the breeding ground of a new generation of Malagasy filmmakers.

But what happened since 2006 when the Rencountres du Film Court took place for the first time? Let's talk about the evolution of an African film festival.

Laza: “I decided to make a festival here in Madagascar – a festival for short film. I'll always remember my first meeting with the director of the French Institute. She asked me: “How can you make a festival in a country where there are no filmmakers?” It was true, but I said let's just try. I put my personal money into the festival and so we started the thing like this.

One of the important points in the beginning was an interview I gave at a local TV show. I lied and said that filmmakers can win an artist-in-residence-ship abroad. If you live on an island your obsession is to leave. And it worked. For the first edition of RFC we had 35 submissions. One of them was an animation. We never thought that there are 35 short films. When we saw this kind of excitement we decided to go on.

In the beginning, the festival took place for two days. I think the second edition lasted five days already. And by the way we managed to send people abroad. Between the announcement I made on TV and the first edition of RFC I gave my best to arrange something. We were able to send the winner to La Reunion. We arranged a partnership there. After that we continued to create partnerships in other countries and now we have 65 partners around the world.

Till now the number of submissions from Madagascar stabilised around 60 short films – animation, documentary and fiction.

The objective of the festival is clear for me. It is to support the Malagasy filmmakers. It is only to make things happen in Madagascar. That's why till 2016 we didn't open the competition for international or other African films. Since the tenth edition we are starting to open up for African films from the continent and the Indian Ocean.

Many people asked me why the festival is only for local film. Let me put it that way. If you want to compete, there are other festivals in Africa. To support the local cinema is one way for me to participate in the development of African cinema. If the Malagasy cinema works, it's one problem less for African cinema. First solve the problem in your house, then you can start to think about everything outside your door.”

For 9 years the festival was a save ground and gave the emerging Malagasy artists a platform to present their films. Since the tenth edition the competition in animation became pan-African. The eleventh edition opened the doors for pan-African fictional and documentary filmmaking.

The RFC takes place for 9 days every year now. It became an international funded festival with a budget in six figures that is able to invite and host almost 40 filmmakers and guests from all over the world. During the eleventh edition, over 20.000 visitors were counted, more than 400 films where screened, 15 free workshops and four panel discussions took place.

Two of the workshops were held by Theresa Grysczok, student of the Animation Class Kassel, as a continuation of collaboration between RFC and the Animation Class Kassel that lasts since 2014.

The program starts with a film that perfectly describes the feelings of the young generation of Malagasy filmmakers. I WANT TO MAKE A MOVIE by Nathaniela R. Randrianomearisoa is as surreal as technically limited, but also expresses the need to take a camera and tell a story.

In the spirit of evolution the program is completed by four productions from all over Africa. All of them have been screened in competition at RFC. Thus “Encountering Madagascar” becomes encountering Africa.