Created in 2004 by Katell Quillévéré and Sébastien Bailly from within the Film Directors Association, the Rencontres du moyen métrage de Brive is supported by important sponsoring partners – the City of Brive-la-Gaillarde, the Department of Corrèze, the Limousin, the Ministry of Culture (DRAC), the CNC – as well as many private-owned companies. The festival is designed to be a meeting ground for the general public and professionals, centered on a format as of yet still poorly distributed: the medium length film. The highly diversified selection reflects the vitality of this cinematographic format: over 100 screenings, a competition of recent films, theme-driven selections, tributes, educational selections, roundtables, a live-music screening. The festival is also a convivial moment which brings together the general public and the professionals: films introduced by their directors, producers, actors or technicians; cocktail discussions between audience members and the film’s crew, lessons in visual arts, debates, rediscoveries of rare works… The festival is still the only one in Europe entirely devoted to this format today. The profession immediately recognized it as an important place for the defense of artistic creation and a unique link to the public. In 2009, more than 100 professionals traveled to Brive for an event now recognized as a festival of primary importance by the National Center for Cinematography (CNC) (classed as 1st Category in 2006). The national and regional press followed the evolutions of the event since the very first edition. Finally, the public has turned the festival into a truly lively zone of exchange with the filmmakers. The attendance rate, which has risen with each year’s edition, reached 7 166 audience members in 2011, for the festival’s eighth edition.