FROM SEPTEMBER 1st 2009 TO AUGUST 8 2010
For the first time film criticism is on the same medium as its object. A major part of the distribution and "consumption" of cinematographic art now takes place via the Internet. This technological momentum calls for a return to simplicity, even archaism: to cinema auditoriums, discussion, meetings with the public and the forging of new critical tools. It was from this realisation that the www.independencia.fr web site was born. For criticism in crisis it will entail inventing a new place and a variety of rhythms - daily, serial, event-based - so as to modulate the relationship of writing to an increasingly disseminated cinema, flexibly and at every conceivable speed.
The journal is being launched in mid-September and will offer daily on-line updates. Criticisms of films that can be seen at cinemas, on television or at galleries. Follow-up of festivals and major events. Files, discussions, running articles on a theme, artist, or film-maker. Or sometimes simple notes.
Devised by Eugenio Renzi and Antoine Thirion, two former editors of Cahiers du Cinéma, the web site represents a team sharing the same desire to take a new look at the profession of critic, and gives established authors the opportunity to introduce independent works. Independencia also runs workshops with readers, which in turn feed into the work of the journal.
Eugenio Renzi was born in Rieti (Italy) in 1980. He is an editor at Cahiers du cinéma and collaborates on the journals Vertigo, Les Lettres Françaises, and Ciak. He is the artistic director of Printemps du cinéma français in Rome. In 2005, he successfully submitted a thesis on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
Antoine Thirion was born in 1981. He studied the visual arts, art history and cinema, then collaborated on Cahiers du cinéma as an editor until 2009. He is currently co-curator of the James Benning retrospective which is being held at the Jeu de Paume, from 20 October 2009 to 17 January 2010.
Eugenio Renzi and Antoine Thirion decided to create the magazine Independencia on the eve of the opening of the 2009 Cannes Festival. The name of the web site is taken from the title of the Raya Martin’s film, Independencia, its theme having inspired the two founders to create the magazine.
