Festival des à-côtés — Lyons-la-Forêt Film Festival

A festival for films that don't exist elsewhere

The Festival des à-côtés lives up to its name: it focuses precisely on what mainstream cinema leaves out. Created by curious filmmakers, producers, and artists, this film festival, held in Lyons-la-Forêt—a village listed among the most beautiful in France, located in the heart of Europe's largest beech forest—provides a platform for quality works that have not had theatrical or television distribution.

Fiction films, documentaries, short and medium-length films, animated films, experimental cinema, and unique productions: the festival embraces all genres and formats, with originality and artistic quality as its sole criteria. From the unusual to the experimental, from raw film to poetic cinema, the à-côtés offers audiences subjects they are not accustomed to seeing, offbeat perspectives on the world, and bold cinematic forms.

Screenings, meetings, and visual arts

Each edition unfolds over three days in November, in various locations within the village. The program includes screenings followed by meetings with directors who present their films and engage with the audience in an intimate and friendly atmosphere. The festival also dedicates significant space to visual arts: the official opening coincides with the vernissage of an exhibition by a painter, sculptor, or photographer, creating a bridge between cinema and visual arts.

Each edition revolves around a unifying theme—"The Earth" in 2024, for example—which guides the film selection and shapes the discussions. The festival also offers school screenings and animation and stop-motion film creation workshops for children, conducted throughout the year, with their creations screened during the festival weekend.

A village setting for demanding cinema

The choice of Lyons-la-Forêt as the festival location is no accident. This Norman village, whose half-timbered houses and medieval market hall served as the backdrop for Claude Chabrol's film Madame Bovary, possesses a natural cinematic atmosphere. Surrounded by the Lyons national forest—10,700 hectares of ancient beech trees—the village offers an intimate and inspiring screening setting, far from the hustle and bustle of big cities and perfectly aligned with the spirit of discovery and contemplation that the festival champions.

With its unique position in the Norman film landscape, the Festival des à-côtés appeals to all those who believe that cinema is not limited to what's currently showing in theaters, and that the most beautiful stories are sometimes found on the fringes.