French

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Elodie Bouchez and Natacha Regnier both won “Best Actress” honors at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival in this naturalistic drama about two women alienated from mainstream society. After a trio of short films, this is the feature directorial debut of 41-year-old French filmmaker Erick Zonca. With opening scenes reminiscent of Agnes Varda’s Vagabond (1985), optimistic hobo Isa (Bouchez), with her life in her backpack, has a gritty existence on the road, going from one town to another through northern France, working factory jobs and selling cards. After she loses a garment-factory job, her withdrawn, near-catatonic co-worker Marie (Regnier) lets Isa share space in her Lille living quarters — an apartment actually belonging to a hospitalized mother and daughter.Read More »

Known as “Justice Is Done” in 1953 when it was first shown in the USA, it opens with a short briefing in English on the French jury system and then reverts to French with English subtitles. The Marshal summons the jury and an insight is given into the background of the seven jurors who are to decide on the guilt of the accused, a sick man’s mistress on trail for his mercy killing. The trial appears to be not presented to prove her innocence or guilt, but rather to let the court (film) philosophize on the moral acceptability of euthanasia.Read More »

Synopsis:
Amelie is a Cocotte (=a tart); she trades on her charms,abetted by her father who plays a role generally delegated to mothers (Gremillon’s “Gueule d’amour” or Allegret’s “Maneges” ). She is wooed by every Tom, Dick and Harry passing by. She’s currently supported by a military man, courted by a foreign prince – who gives the equivalent of the French Legion d’honneur to dad, – and, besides, she is to marry a young lad who covets his wealthy uncle’s heritage: the necessary and sufficient condition for getting the dough is getting married.Read More »

Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort, where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. Tati’s masterpiece of gentle slapstick is a series of effortlessly well-choreographed sight gags involving dogs, boats, and firecrackers; it was the first entry in the Hulot series and the film that launched its maker to international stardom.Read More »

Improvisation by Paul Vecchiali and Françoise Lebrun – On Paul’s initiative, Françoise and Paul met after a long separation, on the pretext to search in commun for a lost memory, a song. It soons appears that Paul’s objective is to win her back.

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Quand j’écrivais le scénario de En haut des marches, je me suis trouvé en panne à un moment du récit. Impossible de discerner ce qui me bloquait. En sortant d’Auditel, qui comptait une dizaine de salles de montage où travaillaient, entre autres, Jacques Demy et Éric Rohmer, j’ai croisé Françoise Lebrun, connue elle aussi au Studio Parnasse.Read More »

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière brothers.Read More »

“Just A Beginning” follows a nursery school class for a period of two years. But this is a very unusual class as the children, aged three to five study… philosophy! Seated in a circle around a ritually lit candle, the children, in a fresh, funny and sometimes merciless manner, approach the universal subjects of love, power, difference, growing up, death etc. Little by little the philosophy workshop becomes a privileged moment where each child reflects on the words of the other, learns how to listen and to build a discourse. From now on they will be able to think for themselves! With their emotions, their unusual expressions and their contradictions, the children of this nursery school deliver a single testimony on an innovative experiment. “Just A Beginning” is the fabulous true story of a school with an eye on the future.Read More »

Over turning given assumptions about gay identity with it’s 1st world connotations as well as our less informed view of the sub-Saharan African context, this gentle, humble film depicts the less often if ever portrayed life of gay love in rural Africa.

This film’s relevance & point of interest is that it remains perhaps the only example of it’s kind to provide images which counteract notions of homophobia & the non existence of homosexuality in the realm of ‘blackness’, ‘Africa’ and the developing world & provides an accessible & familiar story of the dilemmas of love specifically within all three contexts usually understood to exclude gay representation.Read More »

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This Francois Truffaut thriller is based on a novel by William Irish (aka Cornell Woolrich), whose books had been adapted by Alfred Hitchcock on many previous occasions. Jeanne Moreau stars as a woman whose fiancé is nastily murdered by five men. Utilizing a series of disguises, the cool-customer Moreau tracks down all five culprits, sexually enslaves them, and then engineers their deaths. The ominous musical score was written by Bernard Herrmann, another frequent Hitchcock collaborator. The Bride Wore Black was initially released in France as La Mariee etait en Noir. — Hal EricksonRead More »