Event within the event, the symposium “Olympic Heritage and Image(s) of Sport” is organized as part of the second edition of the International Film Festival of the Fédération Internationale Cinéma Télévision Sportifs, by the Panathlon Nice Côte d’Azur, chaired by Richard Papazian, in partnership with the Côte d’Azur Sport Film Festival, a burgeoning section of this event, and with the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis.
It will take place this Wednesday the 27th at 6 PM at the Château de Valrose, home of the University of Nice.
Côte d’Azur Sport Film Festival FICTS, whose second edition is held in Sophia-Antipolis and in Nice, is thus the Maralp and Azurian version of this international sports film festival.
The premiere in Sophia was a promising and already beautiful success, where magnificent films were rewarded.
Let’s bet that the development, success, and impact of this event, immediately appreciated, will grow exponentially, and it will become a more anticipated event each year.
… FROM THE FILM SYMPOSIUM TO THE IMAGES!
The orientation and program of the symposium illustrate the desire to broaden the attack angle inherent in the spontaneous festival by extending the approach from visual imagery to the full range of mental imagery, the former being, of course, a major support for the latter, and the latter a means of understanding the former.
While sports films, in their abundance, are naturally encompassed in the presentations and discussions, the proposed topic ventures beyond cinema; fascinated by the powerful charm of the magic lantern’s lights, it does not hesitate to project beyond the darkened room.
The communications presented at the symposium and the ensuing exchanges will constitute some of the reflections of a kaleidoscope or the facets of a prism, intended to enrich each participant’s viewpoint on the addressed question, within the audience of this evening, designed as a moment of sharing, both stimulating, fruitful, captivating, and convivial.
The interventions thus form, deliberately, a rich mosaic of experiences and reflections, and express the organizers’ choice to freely address the range of sports images, the themes of its televisual representation, its media coverage, its communication, and the image of the sport that these trivialize.
Contributions will also allow drawing from the diversity of their perspectives, based on our personal perception of the situation and our own sensitivity to the issue mentioned.
The object of the symposium is therefore simply to provoke questioning and thus foster an intimate journey, without the ambition of reaching a definitive answer that would gain unanimous agreement.
Do Olympic values and image(s) of sport appear harmonious or do they prove dissonant? What are the various conceivable consequences? If necessary, how can we address them, assuming we consider ourselves stakeholders in the game?
The symposium focuses, in this area, on the relationship and comparison between, on one side, the values — fair play, elegance… — inherited from the modern Olympic conception of sport, the clarity, durability, and relevance of its imprint, the depth and intensity of its influence, and on the other side the abundance and diversity of the images that sport conveys and broadcasts, or which influence and transform sport.
Is this possibly a clash between idea and reality, between reality and image, or even a collision between images themselves (idealized, intrinsic, media)?
The adequacy between Olympic and sporting values, an idea of sport, its vision, its ideal image, on one hand, and on the other hand its reality, the effective image it reflects and the media images emanating from it?
Sport as we, individually or collectively, find it is, in agreement or not with our references, and as we might want it to be, become or return to?
The beacon of Olympic culture, a persistent light from an extinguished star, perpetuated beyond time and space?
Concordant or not with the image that sport presents of itself here and now, and with the images propagated daily?
As we live and observe it, does sport coincide with that to which we adhere and aspire, that we admire and love?
The floor is now open to speakers and participants, without further delay!
by Jean-Gérard Guarino, Vice-President of the Panathlon of Nice and coordinator of the symposium
