ECAL joins the fight against fakes

The Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie is casting its net further and wider in its fight against fakes. As part of its programme to raise public awareness of the damage this illicit business causes – counterfeiting represents some 7% of world trade and frequently involves organised crime – the FHH is stepping behind the camera and launching three film-making projects. First an online short film competition for the general public on the theme of counterfeiting. Second, the Foundation is asking half a dozen Swiss directors to present their films on the subject.

The third project revolves around a partnership between the FHH and the ECAL. As part of their study course, the 60 students in the school’s visual communication department will make a short film on the same theme. Their films and those entered by the public will be judged by a panel of professionals and some fifty of them screened, along with the professional films, at different short-film festivals. A gala evening in Geneva will crown this non-commercial event, the different parts of which will be launched in September. The Foundation plans to extend these initiatives in the future to schools and film-makers outside Switzerland. Just to show that even if the quality of counterfeits has improved, buying fakes isn’t something to be taken lightly and nor is it without consequences.

"One of the five heavyweights in Europe"

ECAL has a reputation that now extends well beyond Swiss borders. An article in the French news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur describes the school as “one of the five heavyweights of its kind in Europe, and one of the ten finest art schools on the international circuit. [ECAL has] enough material to fill a thought-provoking, investigative documentary of the kind students learn to make on a three- to five-year course that spans visual arts, visual communication, industrial design and cinema.”

Still from Le Nouvel Observateur: “Allow me to introduce you to the extraordinary individual who presides over the destiny of this art school in its extravagantly-dimensioned building. Fading fast when he took the helm in 1995, the school now boasts more than 400 students, the very ones leading galleries will be jostling to show, and who will be called upon to play a part in the world of art, publishing, design, photo and company. Name: Pierre Keller. Born: 1945. Good-humoured and energetic, Keller is a curious animal in the world of contemporary art, on first name terms with Warhol, Balthus, Basquiat and Haring […]. From tenured staff to workshop leaders, A-listers in contemporary art and design have taught at ECAL, including Nan Goldin, Philippe Starck, Paolo Roversi, Christo, Abbas Kiarostami and Ronan Bouroullec.

ECAL’s visual communication department “trains students in all professions related to visual communication. They become familiar with design and visual concepts, project methodology and analysis in the general field of communication.” Skills they can now apply in the fight against counterfeiting.