2019 Edition
The Nyon International Archaeology Film Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary.
To celebrate this anniversary, FIFAN has turned its attention to the history of the archaeological film. The creation of television gave new impetus to the production of this type of documentary. A pioneer in Europe, Télévision Suisse Romande (now RTS) brought with it other national channels, including those in France and Belgium. The opening evening of the Festival featured a recent RTS production, Archéologie en Suisse, à la recherche de l'amour, followed by a presentation by Pierre Barde, historic producer of the series L'homme à la recherche de son passé. He spoke about the golden age of archaeology documentaries at RTS in the 1960s and 1970s. The evening ended with a screening of the 1963 film Les Mayas.
Other Swiss productions were presented throughout the week; Thursday evening's screening was entirely devoted to them, with films such as Tauredunum, a Tsunami on Lake Geneva. Saturday saw the screening of Le geste et la matière, a film about Swiss archaeoceramist Pierre-Alain Capt, in his presence.
During the festival, time travel can double as a trip to the four corners of the globe. While the great pre-Columbian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations were in the spotlight throughout the week, the program also made room for lesser-known places with, for example, films devoted to the discovery of Greenland and its colonization by the Vikings, or the vestiges left by the first tribes who criss-crossed the desert of the Sultanate of Oman five millennia ago.
Wednesday evening's session was dedicated to the relationship between Egypt and biblical tradition, with two films on the 10 plagues of Egypt and a presentation by Egyptologist Pierre Meyrat.
The entire day on Friday was devoted to prehistory. Neanderthal man and his problems were the main focus. What was his life like, how did he cohabit with modern man and why did he disappear? These were the questions addressed in the films on the day's program. Archaeological news also took center stage, with a preview of the film Le mystère de la grotte de Bruniquel. This documentary presents recent research that has enabled the dating of a structure built by man in a cave 175,000 years ago, making it the oldest human construction known to date.
On Saturday, a special lunchtime session presented The Forgotten Papyrus of the Great Pyramid, a film revealing the deciphering of a papyrus written by one of the builders of the Cheops pyramid. The text describes the construction of one of the seven wonders of the world.
The afternoon was devoted to the Gallic and Roman periods, while the festival ended in the evening with the awards ceremony and the screening of a selection of award-winning films.
