The Festival d’Automne à Paris (Paris Autumn Festival) is a festival of contemporary arts, embracing and combining different art forms - theatre, music, dance, the visual arts and film. The 42nd Edition runs 13 September 2013 - 12 January 2014.

The Festival presents works that stand as references, involving approaches of an experimental nature by, inter alia, commissioning artists to create original works. Every year, from September to December, the Festival features over forty events attracting a total audience of more than 100 000.

This year's international programme has a particularly strong focus on Japan and South Africa, as well as artists from Europe, Latin America and North America.

One of the flagship productions for 2013 is a new French-Cambodian co-production between Théâtre du Soleil  and Phare Ponleu Selpak, restaging the epic L’Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge (3-26 October, Théâtre du Soleil - La Cartoucherie, Paris) 

In 1985, Ariane Mnouchkine staged Hélène Cixous’s epic on Cambodia’s tragic recent history, from its independence in 1953 to the end of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship. At the time, the play couldn’t be shown in Cambodia. Today, Georges Bigot (who acted in the 1985 play) and Delphine Cottu stage a new version of the work with thirty young Cambodian actors from Phare Ponleu Selpak, Social Centre and Art School in Battambang, Cambodia.

This important international co-production will then tour in France to Festival Sens Interdits (Célestins-Théâtre de Lyon, 28- 30 October), Théâtre de Vénissieux  on 8 November, Comédie de Valence on 19 November and Théâtre national de Toulouse, 21- 23 November.
 Prior to the Paris performances, it will be on in Lisbon (19-21 September) and Limoges (27-29 September).

From Japan, the Festival d’Automne à Paris presents:

• Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Accelerated Buddha is showing at the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent (10 October - 26 January)
• Toshiko Okada performances 'Ground and Floor' at the Pompidou Centre (9-12 October) and Current Location (14-19 October)
• Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinjû performances at the Théâtre de la Ville (10-19 October)

Also on the programme:

• Eternal Dress, a performance with Tilda Swinton, conceived by Olivier Saillard, Director of Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, at the Paris Fashion Museum 20-24 Nov

Paris Autumn Festival - FULL Season Programme Image: © Arnaud Lafontaine | L’Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge