This year the BNP Paribas Eastern France Network elected to support the second edition of the Strasbourg European Fantasy Film Festival, which took place from 15th to 20th September 2009.

The aim of the festival is to publicise short and feature-length fantasy films that may not be released to cinemas, and to give the public a glimpse of cinema’s “fantastic” side.

The attendance figures have not yet been announced, but the city’s heart beat to the rhythm of the fantastical for almost a week. The streets of the European capital were decked out in posters announcing the “Zombie Parade”, which attracted over 500 participants and provided a scarily amusing introduction to the festivities.

An Aliens exhibition, a competition, a poster exhibition, a retrospective, a tribute; all the ingredients were there to satisfy cinema lovers and those interested in discovering a lesser known genre of film.

At the same time the branches of the Bas-Rhin region reinforced the affinity of the BNP Paribas Group with cinema through posters, leaflets and banners, thus making the event as visible as possible.

The jury, which included the director Ruggero Deodato, and Roger Corman, the scriptwriter and producer who launched the careers of Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda and Bruce Dern, awarded the Golden Octopus to the film “Moon”, a tribute to the science fiction films of the 1960s.