The Competition

Claire Simon's 2017 French documentary observes from inside the entrance examinations at La Fémis, France's most prestigious film school. Forty are chosen from a thousand candidates; the camera is in the examination rooms and in the jury's meetings. Its most valuable quality is showing the jury's own arguments: who is counted as talented, which sentences are read as markers of class, and how subjective the decisions are, all become plain. Simon offers no commentary and leaves the record, and the result becomes a criticism of an institution. It is long and repetitive; but the repetition is itself part of the account. Who it's for: viewers interested in film education and the mechanisms of institutional selection. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative progression, or who will find observational documentary over two hours wearing.