In La Rochelle, Festiprev, which celebrates its tenth anniversary, “it is the Cannes youth festival”

ILya ten years, following a call for projects from the La Rochelle agglomeration community, Angoul’lisirs, a youth and popular education association, created Festiprev. This international prevention, citizenship and youth festival will take place from May 22 to 24 at Espace Encan, in La Rochelle. “We created it because we knew that there were nuggets carried out in schools and youth structures which were not valued enough. At the start, we made films with young people from La Rochelle and then we opened internationally, “sums up Nicolas Aujard, coordinator of the festival before adding:” It is the Cannes youth festival, except that it is an education festival that highlights the words of young people from 11 to 25 years old “.

Over 2,000 participants

The event now has nearly a hundred partners and it brings together 800 people at each session where six short films are broadcast (less than 5 minutes). The young people present their film, then exchange with the room. “These are moments that are very intense because they talk about subjects they have chosen with their words and codes. And all adults listen, ”says the coordinator. This year 2,062 young people participated, 138 films were received and 36 were selected. “We have accompanied 17 film creations on the agglomeration with colleges and the University of La Rochelle”. The selection committee has received many short films on social pressure and three who speak of war. “We had never had it, it’s quite worrying but it reveals real substantive subjects of society and that is what is interesting”.

“This year, three short films are talking about war. We had never had it, it’s quite worrying but it reveals real social subjects … “

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Indeed, the objective is also to try to make things happen on certain issues which concern society more broadly. “A few years ago, a group had presented a film on nitrogen oxide and he explained that one of their friends had consumed it, that he was in a coma and they wanted it to stop,” said Nicolas Aujard.

A YouTube channel has been created to bring together all the films and it has more than 10 million views. “It has become a toolbox for all educators in the broad sense because the idea is to bring these films to life.” Many subjects are (unfortunately) always topical such as harassment, sexism or ecology, for example. “Angoul’loisirs is a youth and popular education association, it is our core business so we would like the public sector to support these actions of general interest more. We would dream that the great ministries are interested in what young people say to act concretely on certain issues that are raised, ”concludes Nicolas Aujard.