The Beyond Border Documentary Festival is situated at the Crossroads of History and Cinema, of a scientific, academic activity and an artistic way of representing the world, its events, its people and its evolutions. For History, the search for the truth, for the « real thing » is at the center of attention. Starting from the reality, its representations and manifestations, the historical approach aims to understand the ins and outs, tries to extract one or several meanings, attempts to identify the inner structure and dynamics of the events that are marked on the line of Time. It will often take the form of a book, a thesis, a conference (or sometimes a film) and attempts to come close to objectivity. It will try to be complete, comprehensive,  verifiable. It mainly aims to explore and explain.

By contrast, the artistic approach, selecting only certain elements of the « real thing », deciding to ignore others, will attempt to create a meaningful, filmic, coherent representation that must be understood as a personal interpretation of the reality. It will obey the rules of dramaturgy, of storytelling. Contrary to popular believe a documentary is not a representation of reality, even if it uses archive materiel extensively, it does not pretend to be complete. Of course, no serious filmmaker intends to deform historical realities, but with the choices he makes (events, characters, protagonists etc) his main focus is a coherent internal structure for his film. While it sets out, and very often succeeds, to « kill myths » and wrong images of reality, it does not pretend to create a real, historical and complete representation. It mainly aims to reveal and inspire. 

There are of course many mixed forms between the two extremes, and very often, it is hard to sit down and determine precisely where this or that film or book stands. It is in these grey areas of mixture where we’d like to place le Grand Débat: let's have Historians and Filmmakers meet and start a dialogue about what the wonderful advantages and hidden dangers are, when History meets Cinema, when Documentary approaches historical realities. We put the first edition of the Grand Debat into the light of the Beginnings of Europe, and choose the figure of Robert Schuman, often quoted as one of the fathers of Europe, as the focus point of the debate. To do this we have invited on the one hand Carpe Diem’s film, FOR EUROPE, rediscover Robert Schuman, and have asked on the other hand our Guest of Honor, Pr. Annie Lacroix-Riz to share with us some of the extensive research she has done on this personality. We hope that between these two different ways to approach a subject, we can have an inspiring and productive debate. The objective: let's make sure that the meeting of History and Cinema is a happy one.