Health is a vital concern that we all share. Without our health, what becomes of our plans, our personal, family or social life? Health is also a vast professional sector, made up of doctors, nurses, chemists, associations and health insurance firms in permanent contact with each and everyone.
Promoting better health, promoting new techniques and new attitudes, advancing health knowledge and science are therefore important and even paramount objectives. They are also the goals of the ImagéSanté festival, founded in 1994 and in its ninth edition this year, which will be deploying its growing number of increasingly diversified activities in and around the city of Liège.
Over ten editions, ImagéSanté has taken on a leading place and built up an international reputation, becoming a reference in terms of festivals devoted to health, both at European and world level.
The distinctive feature of ImagéSanté is images. Consequently, it is mainly through short and medium length films that ImagéSanté addresses many enthralling themes. The very heart of the event is a genuine festival of cinema, showing more than two hundred films from all over the world, some in competition and others viewable on request. An international grand jury, working within several different sectors, as well as, we hope, a large audience of professionals and people interested in the theme will discover, often as advance showings, original productions that are never banal and always thought-provoking…
The main new feature of the 2010 edition of the Festival concerns the organisation, on Thursday evening, of a world-first advance showing: the live broadcast at the Sauvenière cinema using fibre optics and in 3D of a surgical operation taking place at Liège’s University Hospital. New 3D technology has made this challenge possible and will allow, through better vision of operations, major progress in the quality of work and training of doctors.
In addition to the film competition, a vast programme of conferences, workshops and event evenings will be organised, because whilst a festival has a heart, it must also have a soul, a spirit made up of friendliness and human warmth thanks to all the contacts and interactions that will occur on the different sites. The heart of the festival will be beating in the lecture theatres of the University Hospital, host to projections of the main films and the juries judging them, but ImagéSanté will also breath life into the heart of the City, in the University’s Academy Rooms where the operations will be broadcast live (one of the main original features of the festival), at the Congress Centre for a grand conference chaired by Axel Kahn, at the Le Parc Cinema in Droixhe for the opening evening and the health insurance firms’ gala, once again the Sauvenière cinema for several leading cultural events, at the Prince-Bishop’s Palace for the award ceremony gala, amongst many others…
ImagéSanté, an opportunity for debate and interaction, will also be hosting many workshops for young people and, for the first time in the festival’s history, for the elderly, whose health is a major concern.
ImagéSanté will even pay witness to two original extensions to its programme: firstly, the third installation of a WebTV service, accessible during the Festival on ‘www.imagesante.be’, allowing viewers to follow at any moment the highlights and fringes of the festival (extracts of films, interviews with jury members and directors, news features, surgical operations with live commentaries, etc.); secondly, several weeks after the festival, a ‘Best of’ evening will be presented at the Le Parc Cinema, during which the prize winning films of the festival will be shown.
This year, the organisers of ImagéSanté have confirmed their strong desire to widen the festival’s impact. Their aim, during an edition that sees the festival’s maturity grow, is to clearly consider ImagéSanté not only as a means for viewing films but also as a tool for selecting the best new films about health in order to ensure a wider distribution for them after the festival. Such wider broadcasts will be possible in particular thanks to the close and rewarding cooperation set up on the one hand with various networks of schools, and on the other hand with all the health insurance firms. These continuing partnerships will provide the prize winning and selected works with another lease of life, for a longer duration, promoting the goals of the Festival, thanks also to the publishing in September of a DVD containing the main works discovered during the festival.
We would already like to bid a warm welcome to all the directors and producers, from Belgium and abroad, who, during the space of a week, will come to Liège to get the pulse of ImagéSanté racing with films and debates. We would also already like to express our thanks to the members of the jury who have accepted to lend their skills and energy to our Festival. Thanks must also go to all the private and public partners who, through their active support, have helped ImagéSanté to broaden its horizons further than ever before!
ImagéSanté 2012 took you on an enthralling journey through images of science and the science of images!
ImagéSanté aims to attract a wide audience, including anyone with an interest in the wide range of questions surrounding health and personal wellbeing, with particular emphasis on young people and the elderly.
Key themes:
At the same time, ImagéSanté targets an audience made up of health professionals - from general practitioners and specialist doctors to professionals working in the medical and paramedical sector, specialist press and students.
Key themes:
For professionals and the general public!
ImagéSanté 2012 took everyone on a fascinating journey, from images of science to the science of images. This journey is a whistle-stop tour of what remains, first and foremost, a wonderful voyage of discovery!
We live in times marked by a growing interest in health matters and everyone’s wellbeing. The development of technologies, improving living conditions and an overall improvement in terms of levels of education create a world, which will hopefully place health and wellbeing problems at the heart of its priorities and aspirations. ImagéSanté supports this trend and prioritises prevention and education for improved health, by organising films and studies, which help increase understanding of how the human body works and diseases develop, as well as risk factors and conditions for improvement. One of the key aims of the ImagéSanté Festival is to help visitors become conscious and voluntary stakeholders in their own health, which is also the main topic of its “Health education” session.
It is well known that health insurance companies reimburse fees paid for medical care and arrange compensation in the event of incapacity to work, but less is known about their role in promoting health, which includes prevention and health education.
Health promotion aims to convey a positive image of health, enable the individual to become a stakeholder in his health, identify the necessary resources in himself in order to improve his health and thus reduce his health care costs.
Over the years, the ImagéSanté Festival has become a benchmark in terms of raising awareness of health and the use of images. The use of images, technology and the media are vital when it comes to promoting health and raising public awareness. This motivated four medical insurance companies from Liège to support the festival.
It is actually essential that medical insurance companies present themselves as health partners, in line with the concerns of today’s world, by highlighting topics and messages that encourage everyone to adopt healthy lifestyles. Health insurance companies have to enable people to access relevant, appropriate, approved and useful information.
A possible initiative, for anyone wishing to contribute to a health promotion strategy, would be to join the panel of health insurance companies, which selects topical, relevant and moving films.
Environment quality and protection are becoming increasingly major areas for concern. The impact of environmental problems on health is now real and tangible. As a result, it is vital that we raise general awareness in order to plan for the future and identify possible solutions. Once again, this year’s ImagéSanté will devote a whole session to environmental issues, by showcasing a selection of original films.
A specialist panel will award a special “environmental” prize, which will hopefully contribute to a better environment and therefore improved health.
No further proof is required that a healthy and balanced diet is vital for good health. Despite this, many people still suffer from deficiencies, obesity or malnutrition.
Like many other things, diet is something that we have to learn! For this reason, this year’s ImagéSanté Festival sets out to provide its public with films vying for competition prizes, as well as tools, workshops and discussions focusing on the importance of learning about and understanding nutrition.
Engineering refers to any company that provides its customers with “functional systems” (consumer products, machines and industrial processes), as well as companies that manufacture components or sub-assemblies using different technologies. These “functional systems” can also be found in the health sector.
At this edition, we wish to place special emphasis on the scale of the revolution prompted by these techniques in the medical world.
The leading company in Wallonia, otherwise known as Mécatech, has chosen to support us in this initiative, by disseminating information to all its partners in the medical sector and awarding a €2,000 prize to the winning company at the Engineering event.
Medicine cannot be equated to a theoretical strategy developed in the unreal peace and quiet of lecture theatres and offices, by manipulating concepts that are far removed from the reality of illness. On the contrary, it is especially important for future doctors and a public wishing to stay healthy to know about the factors that threaten life, which can take the form of tumours, aneurysm or atherosclerosis...With this aim in mind, medical films represent an incomparable tool when it comes to recognising what would otherwise remain a concept. As they also make it possible to highlight the latest technological advances in the field of diagnosis and treatment, they represent an important part of the ImagéSanté Festival.
Based on the success of the “Youth” programme at recent editions of the festival, another specific programme will be provided for secondary school pupils. In addition to the technical and medical topics that the festival aims to highlight, the “Young People’s Film Festival” focuses on preventive aspects of medicine.
At the same time, delegates from all secondary school in Belgium’s French Community were honoured guests at the festival, where they were made more aware of the problems caused by smoking, alcohol and drug abuse. Using images, with films specially selected for this purpose, and round table discussions, we have worked with all the relevant stakeholders to identify methods for preventing and taking control of illness. The 2010 edition attracted almost 5,000 students. The workshops will be led by various associations (family planning, CLPS, etc.) in the form of interactive discussion workshops, adapted to the relevant audience.
The programme has been specially designed for secondary school pupils:
This initiative aims to stimulate discussion in schools and help each school develop its own health strategy.
The aim of the festival
ImagéSanté devoted its 2012 edition to reaching a broader cross-section of the general public, out of concern for its wellbeing and health.
ImagéSanté is aimed at:
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