Annecy Competition’s Former Head Faces Jail Sentence for Manslaughter

Serge Bromberg, the previous inventive director of Annecy Worldwide Animation Competition, is going through a four-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

Bromberg was placed on trial earlier this week on the Courtroom of Creteil, close to Paris, as a result of his function in a hearth involving nitrate movie reels that precipitated two deaths in August 2020 throughout a heatwave, in accordance with TV5 Monde.

The well-respected movie skilled has stocked movie reels within the basement of a constructing close to Paris that didn’t have a hearth alarm. In the course of the heatwave, the reels burst into flames. An individual residing within the condominium above the basement was burnt alive whereas one other individual died after leaping from the fourth ground to flee the hearth.

The prosecutor, Missiva Chermak-Felonneau, has requested a four-year sentence, three of them suspended, and a $150,000 high-quality for Bromberg’s firm Lobster Movies.

Bromberg, who headed the programming of Annecy competition from 1999 to 2012 and has targeted on movie restoration since then, informed the court docket that he was absolutely accountable for the tragic occasions.

Chermak-Felonneau mentioned Bromberg was well-aware that nitrate movie reels have been extremely flammable and will have been saved in a refrigerated house.

Investigators mentioned that roughly 1,364 to 1,935 reels weighting between 2.5 and three.6 tons have been saved within the basement when the hearth erupted, in accordance with TV5 Monde. Bromberg informed the court docket the movie reels have been presupposed to be transferred to the Nationwide Movie Board (CNC), which didn’t take them.

Bromberg was recognized for internet hosting a present known as “Retour de flamme” (“Bouncing Flame”) throughout which he offered restored reels on the Orsay museum, amongst different venues. The title, “Retour de flamme,” which he selected, references the flammable nature of nitrate reels.