In fact, Fabrice Laurent, director of Performances d’acteur, and Agnès Bonnet, artistic director for almost two decades, passed on the torch almost a year ago. But no official communication had accompanied this change of governance. at the head of the Cannes festival launched in 1979, which has seen the biggest names in humor and participated in the emergence of several generations of talent, we now find Grégoire Furrer.
Smooth transition
The man is a reference in the middle. The Geneva native, then 21 years old, had launched the Montreux Laughter Festival in 1989 (now Montreux Comedy Festival), a benchmark in the field, bringing together 25,000 spectators a year and benefiting from a very significant resonance on social networks (read box).
For Fabrice Laurent, this successor seemed obvious. “With Agnès, we always worked on human relationships. With Grégoire, we got along quickly. He had a reputation for going fast and really doing things, unlike other people in this profession. He arrives with a new project, not to slip into slippers.”
“Grégoire’s team really has a free hand. From my mouth or from the people around me, there will never be any ‘it was better before’. The technical handover is long and complicated, but it is going well. The Covid deprived us of a last strong edition, which we would have loved to do. It was a bit frustrating for Agnès and me. But above all, we should not push another year for the wrong reasons” , continues Fabrice Laurent.
Grégoire Furrer, he appreciates landing in cleared land. “It’s very good to be accompanied by Fabrice. He explained the workings to me because each city has its particularities. It was also important for me to ensure the support of the town hall and the Partouche group, a big partner of the festival. I had no bad surprises, there was no wolf. The thing was healthy, well managed”, explains the new boss of Performances d’acteur who combines the roles of president of the association of the same name with the functions of general and artistic director.
International conquest and anchoring in Cannes
at 53, he wants to see the country and expand his valve empire. In 2015, he launched the Johannesburg International Comedy Festival in South Africa. Since then, another meeting has been set up in Côte d’Ivoire. And it’s far from over. “We are currently in the process of creating a network of festivals, with the aim of bringing together around ten events a year, around the world: from Montreal to Haiti via Paris and Abidjan”, detailed Grégoire Furrer to the newspaper The Africa Tribunelast May.
And Cannes in all this? A nice catch, for sure. A nice wink for Furrer, too. “Before, when the event was still called the International Café-Théâtre Festival, the whole profession met here. This is the place where I discovered production, the great artists, the major media… I am very attached to this festival. We often forget that Performances d’acteur is the oldest comedy event in the Francophonie, which paved the way for Montreux or Just for Laughs in Montreal.insists the Swiss.
“Jean-Pierre Carriau, the creator, was a precursor, a visionary. He had discovered the phenomenon of the café-théâtre in Paris, a real cultural revolution, which he wanted to bring very quickly to the provinces”adds Fabrice Laurent.
Filmed on the program for the 2022 edition, which will be unveiled in February or March, Grégoire Furrer promises to “capitalize on the DNA of the festival and the incredible infrastructure of the city”.
Fabrice Laurent and Agnès Bonnet, them, can have the light spirit. “We have the feeling of having fulfilled our mission. When we arrived, we wanted to find a large audience, after a bad patch. Our fixed idea was to open the Palais des Festivals to everyone, to people from neighborhoods like those in the city center. And to rejuvenate the average age of spectators. Today, it is 34 years old”concludes Fabrice Laurent.
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