Le vent souffle dans la cour d’honneur

In conjunction with the exhibition “Les Clés du Festival”, ARTE and the Maison Jean Vilar invite you to (re)discover the history and present of the Festival d’Avignon, in close connection with the artists and their creative processes. A selection of films will be followed by discussions with artists and writers featured in this 2025 edition.

Screenings presented and hosted by Philomène Bon (journalist, ARTE Journal).

Le vent souffle dans la cour d’honneur

France // 2013 // 1h35
A documentary by Nicolas Klotz and Élisabeth Perceval
Co-writers: Nicolas Klotz, Élisabeth Perceval, and Antoine de Baecque
Co-produced by La Compagnie des Indes, ARTE France, with the participation of France Télévisions and the Festival d’Avignon

In July 2003, fifty-six years after Jean Vilar founded the Festival d’Avignon, Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller succeeded him as co-directors, declaring their intent to revive the founder’s original utopia in a contemporary form. Artistic risk-taking and high standards, shared with the widest possible audience: these were the guiding principles of the man who, in 1967, when Avignon had already become a major international event, did not hesitate to challenge established norms in order to better embrace the avant-garde and its revolutionary ideals.

On the occasion of their final edition before handing over the reins to Olivier Py, filmmakers Nicolas Klotz and Élisabeth Perceval looked back on a decade of theatre, experimentation, and debate through the lens of Jean Vilar’s utopia. Directors and actors including Simon McBurney, Thomas Ostermeier, Romeo Castellucci, Dieudonné Niangouna, Stanislas Nordey, Arthur Nauzyciel, Christophe Honoré, Nicolas Bouchaud, and Valérie Dréville engage in conversation with the two co-directors and with both renowned and anonymous audience members. A manifesto that brings cinema and its questions into the heart of the creative storm that is the Festival d’Avignon.

Screening followed by a discussion with Hortense Archambault, Antoine de Baecque, Élisabeth Perceval, and Nicolas Klotz.

Organised by ARTE