The Festival is the only event of that kind in the world, that receive the best productions and gathers the highest number of international underwater personnalities such as :

Commandant Philippe TAILLIEZ, Henri G. DELAUZE, Dimitri REBIKOFF, Le Prince Albert De MONACO, Jacques PICCARD, Jacques MAYOL, Jean-Michel COUSTEAU, Luc BESSON, Hans et Lotte HASS, Christian PETRON, David DOUBILET, Eugénie CLARK, Carlo PARLATI, Franck FENNEL, Patricio BERNAL, Stan WATERMAN, Luigi FERRARO, Phil NUYTTEN, Jacques ROUGERIE, Philippe VALLETTE, Sandra BESSUDO, Patrick MOUTON, Lucien LAUBIER, Frédéric DI MEGLIO, Scott CARPENTER, Claire Keim, Bill Todd….

The President of the Festival is Philippe Vallette and the General Delegate is Daniel Mercier.

The Festival was created in 1974 by Daniel Mercier and Spondyle Club team, and has never stopped increasing from that time.

 

The Festival is composed by :

• 19 contests

• 75 prices

It lasts 5 days on average in which :

• films, slide and slide show in contest are screened in 3 rooms

• the phtographies in contest are exhibited

• there are a hundred of stands (underwater material, photo and video, diving clubs and centres, artistic exhibitions – underwater paint and carving...)

• for children, discovery games are organised in some stands

• many conferences take place

• the Festival band plays his best pieces of music….

The reputation of the Festival and its founder D. Mercier is such important that its best productions are exported all around the world. Thus, a Festival tour is organised in France and foreign coutries playing the best films awarded in the previous Festivals, through tourism offices, diving clubs and others.... In 2008, 215 tour days took place in France and all over the world.

Since its creation 35 years ago, the Festival has received a huge number of works, which represent an important wealth of datas in the form of images, films, photos.... That’s why the Foundation of the Festival was created, in 2002. Its aims are to keep the good condition of the awarded films, to control copyrights, to enable the creation of grants to help film-makers and to favour and promote underwater world protection by all means.

The Festival is a place where all underwater world lovers meet. Each year, underwater personalities, competitors comming from the entire world, touristic, artistic and professional exhibitors and passionate visitors gather in this place.

It also has an educational aim through its numerous contests like Young Jury or Poster contest, meant for young people, in order to raise awareness about how it’s important to preserve environement and underwater world environement more particularly – as well as the numerous conferences organised during the Festival.

If you are professional or not, passionate or just curious, the Festival is THE underwater meeting that should not be missed.