The 24th annual Alliance Française French Film Festival returns to Australia next month with a mouth-watering selection of Gallic fare, incorporating 43 new films and documentaries.
Gastronomic delight Haute Cuisine (Les Saveurs du Palais) will launch the Festival; closing night will feature a meticulously restored print of Marcel Carné's Children Of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis), the 1945 classic often referred to as the greatest French film of all time.
Acclaimed artistic director Emmanuelle Denavit-Feller has again been tasked with selecting the most interesting and entertaining films to emerge from France within the past 12 months. Her selections feature many of Europe's most celebrated actors, including Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Carré, Diane Kruger, Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Amalric, Dany Boon, Patrick Bruel, Charles Berling, Catherine Deneuve, Vincent Lindon, Chiara Mastroianni, Isabella Rossellini, Sophie Marceau, Kristin Scott Thomas, Virginie Ledoyen, and — although this probably goes without saying — Gérard Depardieu.
2013 Festival highlights include:
After May (Aprés Mai)
Director: Olivier Assayas (Starring: Lola Créton, Clément Metayer & Félix Armand)
A loosely autobiographical and evocative drama about a young French artist caught up in a whilwind of politics, art and sex in the wake of the events of May 1968.
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Camille Rewinds (Camille Redouble)
Director: Noémie Lvovsky (Starring: Noémie Lvovsky & Samir Guesmi)
Noémie Lvovsky directs, co-writes and stars as Camille, a woman who is about to lose her husband, Eric, to a younger woman. Camille and Eric were 16 when they fell in love, but now, 25 years later, their marriage is over. Camille’s life takes a strange turn when she faints on New Year’s Eve and is transported back in time, waking up in the 80s to find her parents, girlfriends and Eric treating her like the 16 year-old girl she used to be. Realising that she can make different choices, Camille embraces her second chance, but can she avoid the inevitable?
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Feu By Christian Louboutin (Feu par Christian Louboutin)
Director: Bruno Hullin
A breathtaking collaboration between legendary French cabaret, Crazy Horse, and Christian Louboutin, designer of the world-famous, red-soled shoes, this filmed, live, production is an erotically fuelled collection of tableaux that mixes cabaret with music, dance, paintings, space-age chic…and some seriously stylish footwear!
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Fly Me To The Moon (Un plan parfait)
Director: Pascal Chaumeil (Starring: Diane Kruger & Dany Boon)
Isabelle has a successful career and a loving boyfriend, but her family is plagued with a curse: every first marriage ends in divorce. So when her long-term boyfriend, Pierre, proposes, there’s only one thing to do. Isabelle decides she needs to find a total stranger, marry him and divorce him – all before her actual wedding!
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In The House (Dans la maison)
Director: Francois Ozon (Starring: Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas & Emmanuelle Seigner)
A disillusioned high-school literature teacher finds his passion for teaching re-awakened, when he reads a story by one of his students, that is both compelling, yet voyeuristic. His subsequently offers the boy private tuition, but as the line between his new stories and reality blur, he starts to wonder just whom he has let into his house?
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Thérése Desqueyroux (Thérèse Desqueyroux)
Director: Claude Miller (Starring Audrey Tautou, Gilles Lellouche, Anaïs Demoustier & Catherine Arditi)
Based on François Mauriac’s famous novel, famed director Claude Miller’s final film is an elegant drama that tells the story of Thérèse (Audrey Tautou), an intelligent young woman, married off to Bernard Desqueyroux (Gilles Lellouche), the chauvinistic son of another local bourgeois dynasty. Thérèse’s avant-garde ideas clash with the local conventions, which lead her to dream of escaping her staid existence, at almost any cost.
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The Man Who Laughs (L’homme qui rit)
Director: Jean-Pierre Améris (Starring Gérard Depardieu, Marc-André Grondin & Emmanuelle Seigner)
Based on the acclaimed Victor Hugo novel, The Man Who Laughs tells the story of Gwynplaine, a disfigured man with a scarred mouth, which gives him a permanent smile. But on discovering he is the heir to a fortune, he becomes seduced by a life of luxury, forgetting the two people who have always loved him for himself.
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The Invisibles (Les Invisibles)
Director: Sébastien Lifshitz
This documentary explores the lives of the so-called “invisibles” – homosexual men and women born in the interwar period (1919 to 1939). Eleven people from a range of backgrounds share their experiences re struggling to live openly within society, with all the joy, love, sex, homophobia and aggression they have experienced throughout their long lives.
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The French Film Festival will travel to the following venues:
Sydney — March 5-24 — Chauvel Cinema, Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona & Hayden Orpheum Picture PalaceMelbourne — March 6-24 — Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth Cinemas & Kino Cinemas
Canberra — March 7-26 — Palace Electric Cinema
Brisbane — March 14-April 4 — Palace Barracks Cinema & Palace Centro Cinemas
Adelaide — March 19-April 7 — Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas
Perth — March 19-April 7 — Cinema Paradiso, Luna On SX & Windsor Cinema
