O waves, what mournful tragedies ye know!

Guy de Maupassant was already navigating troubled waters back in 1881 when he wrote On the River teeming with Fantastic elements. Its supernatural character, floating gradually to the surface, emerges in the form of a river, enswathed in life-like attributes and appearing as "…a mysterious thing, profound, unknown, a land of mirages and phantasmagoria, where one sees by night things that do not exist…"

If Maupassant’s vision of it conjured up "…the most sinister of cemeteries, one in which one has no tomb…", others have opted – and rightly so – for one depicting qualities full of promise and panacea…and, at the very least, of spellbinding proportions.

Whether from a tranquil river’s course or an unbridled sea, treacherous or uplifting, throwing caution to the wind, and sometimes Mankind, too, water is an element whose transparency ripples out into both the mythological imaginary and Fantastic narrative.

A vivarium for storytellers and artists alike from all backgrounds, it’s really no wonder that the titanic grip on the fate of Mankind by what has been coined "blue gold" decided to dock among their words and imagery doubling as mirrors for humanity’s angst and awe.

When it comes to charting the stakes, we’re anything but wet behind the ears. This resource trickles down into strategic, economic, environmental, political and military pockets. Global challenges that address water conservation are everyone’s business. In the years to come, our planet’s population and economic growth will end up sandbagging, if not suffocating, water’s capacity to sustain human need whereas we should – at the same time – be doing all that is humanly possible to protect natural habitats for our own survival.

More than just a region, Brittany is an area where water, from the tiniest brook to the most monumental of seascapes, is the principal resource.

For this 19th edition, the Court Métrange Festival (propulsed by an ever-quenchless thirst for all things cultural) will be luring itself down into the deep, dark depths of Fantasy’s Blue Gold!