|
Sixth annual event
Brown to present French Film Festival Feb. 20 through March 2
Brown will present its annual French Film Festival Feb. 20 through March 2, 2003, at the Cable Car Cinema, 204 South Main St., Providence. Eighteen French films will be screened throughout the 11-day festival, which is open to the public.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Some of the best films recently produced by the
French film industry can be seen by local audiences when Brown hosts its sixth
annual French Film Festival Feb. 20 through March 2, 2003, at the Cable Car
Cinema.
Eighteen French language films, all with English subtitles, will be screened
during the 11-day festival. In addition, director Jérôme Bonnell
will join in a roundtable discussion on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 4:30 p.m.,
following the screening of his first feature film, Le Chignon
d’Olga. On Saturday, March 1, at 4:30 p.m., director Jeanne Lebrune
and actor/screenwriter Richard Debuisne will lead a roundtable discussion on
their collaboration in C’est le Bouquet!
All of the festival events are open to the public and will take place at the
Cable Car Cinema, 204 South Main St., Providence.
The French Film Festival is sponsored through a collaboration of various
University departments and programs as well as several community organizations.
The festival director is Richard Blakely, a visiting assistant professor of
French studies at Brown. Assistant directors and curators for this year’s
festival are Brown film archivist Richard Manning, Jeff Reichert of Magnolia
Pictures, and Alexandra Siegler of the Toronto International Film Festival.
Susan McNeil is the festival manager; festival coordinator is Sandra Vines.
Tickets are available at the Cable Car Cinema and are $6 per screening for
general admission, $4 per screening for students. Passes are also available for
eight screenings at $30 for general admission and $20 for students. All ticket
proceeds provide funding for the festival. For further information, visit
www.provfrenchfilm.com or contact [email protected] or call (401) 272-3970. The
schedule of screenings follows.
Thursday, Feb. 20
- 7 p.m. – Satin rouge (Red Satin): Raja Amari, director;
France and Tunisia, 2002, 95 minutes. A sensual and sumptuous film that is
reminiscent of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows and 1940s and
1950s Golden Age Egyptian musicals.
- 9:30 p.m. – Le chignon d’Olga: Jérôme
Bonnell, director; France, 2002, 96 minutes. Nearly a year after their
mother’s death, Julien and Emma still live in the house where they grew
up, where they and their father, Gilles, are dealing with their grief in their
own private way.
Friday, Feb. 21
- 7 p.m. – Friday Night (Vendredi soir): Claire Denis,
director; France, 2002, 90 minutes. Denis, one of the pillars of the festival,
offers a new film with stunning visuals that allow viewers into the mind of the
main character, Laure.
- 9:30 p.m. – Merci pour le chocolat: Claude Chabrol, director;
France, Switzerland, and Spain, 99 minutes, 2000. A film based upon Charlotte
Armstrong’s novel The Chocolate Web.
Saturday, Feb. 22
- 12 p.m. – To Be and To Have (Etre et avoir): Nicolas
Philibert, director; France, 2002, documentary, 104 minutes. An evocative
excursus into education at a rural single-class school, where children of varied
ages reap from and struggle through the learning process.
- 2:30 p.m. – Le chignon d’Olga
- 4:30 p.m. – Roundtable discussion with director Jérôme
Bonnell
- 7 p.m. – Alias Betty (Betty Fisher et autres histoires):
Claude Miller, director; France and Canada, 2001, 103 minutes. A French
interpretation of Ruth Rendell’s novel A Tree of Hands, a story of
three women and their sons, both living and dead. The three actresses playing
the mothers jointly won the Best Actress award at the Montreal Film
Festival.
- 9:30 p.m. – Waiting for Happiness (Heremakono):
Abderrahmane Sissako, director; France and Mauritania, 2002, 95 minutes.
Sissako’s first feature film, La vie sur terre, impressed audiences
at the festival two years ago. His films are exquisite meditations on time,
waiting and displacement, including this film, which examines the question, can
one go home again?
Sunday, Feb. 23
- 12 p.m. – Inch’Allah dimanche: Yamina Benguigui,
director; France and Algeria, 2001, 98 minutes. Four years ago Benguigui
presented her epic documentary Memoires d’immigrés at the
festival. In her most recent film, she returns to her examination of Algerian
immigrants in France, this time using the narrative form.
- 2:30 p.m. – Safe Conduct (Laissez-Passer): Bertrand
Tavernier, director; France, 2002, 170 minutes. Cinephile warhorse Tavernier has
generated controversy in Europe with this film, which explores the relations of
Vichy filmmakers and civil servants with the Nazis – and has been labeled
“revisionist” and “reactionary.”
- 7 p.m. – Waiting for Happiness
- 9:30 p.m. – Ma camera et moi (My Camera and Me):
Christophe Loizillon, director; France, 2002, 85 minutes. All Max has ever
wanted to do is photograph God, girls and himself – until he falls in love
with a young blind woman named Lucie, who only thinks of photographing him. A
film about the mania of home movie-making that, according to Loizillon, is not
about movies, but about the power of images and memory.
Monday, Feb. 24
- 2 p.m. – To Be and To Have
- 4:15 p.m. – Waiting for Happiness
- 6:15 p.m. – Safe Conduct
- 9:30 p.m. – Merci pour le chocolat
Tuesday, Feb. 25
- 2 p.m. – Le chignon d’Olga
- 4:30 p.m. – Satin rouge
- 7 p.m. – To Be and To Have
- 9:30 p.m. – Si je t’aime, prends garde à toi: Jeanne
Labrune, director; France, 1998, 110 minutes. In a relationship in which the
woman holds the money and power, can the strength of the couple’s passion
carry them through? This film reveals Labrune’s darker side and poses some
deeply troubling questions.
Wednesday, Feb. 26
- 2:30 p.m. – The Gleaners and I (Les glaneurs et la glaneuse):
Agnès Varda, director; France, 2000, documentary, 87 minutes. Varda, a
former member of the French New Wave, used a digital camera to produce this
critically acclaimed portrait of the age-old tradition of gleaning. (Gleaners
are those individuals who pick at already-reaped fields for the odd potato or
leftover turnip.)
- 4:30 p.m. – The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later: Agnès
Varda, director; France, 2002, documentary, 60 minutes. This work moves beyond a
simple accounting of various players at a later time to also offer a discourse
on the craze over The Gleaners and I.
- Both Gleaners can be seen for the price of a single admission.
- 7 p.m. – Ça ira mieux demain: Jeanne Labrune, director;
France, 2000, 89 minutes. An accurate and amusing depiction of the chaos of
modern day life in Paris, as a circle of friends spins out of control; the first
in a triptych of “fantaisies,” of which C’est le
bouquet! is the second.
- 9:30 p.m. – Marriages (Mariages): Catherine Martin,
director; Canada, 2001, 95 minutes. Lead actress Marie-Eve Bertrand’s
strong performance marks this 19th century ghost story set in French Canada.
When Yvonne’s young romance is thwarted by her sister, she heads to the
woods in search of a supernatural solution.
Thursday, Feb. 27
- 2 p.m. – Merci pour le chocolat
- 4:30 p.m. – Si je t’aime, prends garde à toi
- 7 p.m. – Ma camera et moi
- 9:30 p.m. – Alias Betty
Friday, Feb. 28
- 2 p.m. – Alias Betty
- 4:30 p.m. – Marriages
- 7 p.m. – C’est le bouquet! Jeanne Labrune, director;
France, 2002, 99 minutes. In this satiric comedy, an early morning phone call
from a forgotten ex-lover leads Catherine and her husband Raphael from one
tumultuous event to another, causing him to lose his job and her to nearly lose
her mind.
Saturday, March 1
- 12 p.m. – Ça ira mieux demain
- 2:30 p.m. – C’est le bouquet!
- 4:30 p.m. – Roundtable discussion with director Jeanne Labrune and
actor/screenwriter Richard Debuisne
- 7 p.m. – The Son (Le fils): Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc
Dardenne, directors; Belgium and France, 2002, 103 minutes. As in earlier
Dardenne films (La Promesse and Rosetta), the filmmakers use
claustrophobic, hand-held camera work to explore the lower classes with gritty
realism and authenticity.
- 9:30 p.m. – Satin rouge
Sunday, March 2
- 12 p.m. – Inch’Allah dimanche
- 2 p.m. – The Gleaners and I
- 4:30 p.m. – The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later
- 6:30 p.m. – Friday Night
- 9 p.m. – The Son
######
|