Serge Daney died on 12 June 1992 at the age of 48. He was the most important writer and thinker on film of the post-Bazin generation. In the turbulent years after May ’68 he was editor-in-chief of Cahiers du Cinéma. As writer for Libération he later introduced a completely new style of film journalism and criticism.The basis of the television programme Le cinéphile et le village is formed by a conversation with Serge Daney on 6 June 1991, a year before his death. Daney was a master in formulating and testing out ideas about film, television and reality on the fly. Le cinéphile et le village provides a taste of his unique art of narrative and formulation.In this conversation Daney talks about the role of television and the relationship between town and village. Television, he argues, does not always offer something new or interesting but has other functions. For instance that of consolation, during the Gulf War, or as a medium in order to escape your own narrow-minded here and now (‘cocoon’ is the word he uses) and figuratively move out into the world. He argues that the reverse, namely the bond between publique and publicité should not be underestimated. Daney links city and world: he was a city boy and has always been able to use the window on the world offered by film in the form of cinemas.Daney was a regular guest at this festival, with which he felt closely affiliated. It is therefore also fitting that this ‘man of the word’ be remembered here by naming an annual lecture.
