Events
SFIFF52 FRENCH-LANGUAGE FILMS
It's Not Me, I Swear!
Philippe Falardeau, Canada (pictured)
In a placid Montreal suburb in 1968, ten-year-old Léon is a hellion
with a cause. The child of dysfunctional but au courant parents, he
needs attention. Philippe Falardeau's (Congorama) intelligent comedy is also a touching study of abandonment.
Bluebeard
Catherine Breillat, France
Following last year's opening night sensation The Last Mistress,
France's masterful Catherine Breillat returns to the Festival with this
playful, intoxicating and surprisingly personal rumination on Charles
Perrault's 17th-century fairytale.
Karim Dridi, France
Karim Dridi creates a vivid picture of Roma life in an enclave on the outskirts of Marseille. Thirteen-year-old Marco, a runaway from foster care, prefers this place of hard living and big, messy families to life on the outside.
Home
Ursula Meier, Switzerland/France/Belgium (pictured)
Isabelle Huppert stars in this look at the gradual deterioration of a family's peaceful existence when the long-unused stretch of highway that borders their house suddenly opens to public use.
35 Shots of Rum
Claire Denis, France
Claire Denis magically limns the story of a father and daughter facing her inevitable independence in this beautiful tale set among a small circle of Parisians and their friends. Soulful Alex Descas stars, and Ingrid Caven has a memorable cameo.
Modern Life
Raymond Depardon, France
Raymond Depardon has been documenting the changing face of rural France in his Profils Paysans series. Modern Life combines his flair for widescreen shots and the perfect light with his patience for the kitchen interview, and always, his love for his subjects.
Sacred Places
Jean-Marie Téno, Cameroon/France
Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno profiles a poor but lively neighborhood in the capital of Burkina Faso, where a cine club proprietor tries to include Burkinabe films among the action and Bollywood fare. With short Homage (13 min).
Versailles
Pierre Schoeller, France
Guillaume Depardieu, in one of his last performances, brings heart-piercing intensity to the role of a brooding social outcast living in a hut in the woods near Versailles whose life is upended when a young homeless woman decides to leave her five-year-old son in his care.
Mesrine: A Film in Two Parts
This two-fisted, two-part epic charts the remarkable 20-year crime spree of Jacques Mesrine, France's public enemy number one.
Mesrine: Part One charts the notorious criminal's stint in Algeria and his awakening to his hunger for power and violence. Returning home, Mesrine takes to the role of gangster like he was born to it in Richet's white-knuckle thriller.
In Mesrine: Part Two the criminal's celebrity only increases as a gangster, would-be revolutionary and megalomaniacal media hound. Both exciting and historically meticulous, Mesrine is a fitting tribute for this celebrity criminal.
Summer Hours
Olivier Assayas, France
Olivier Assayas's richly meditative and expressive new film uses the perspectives of three adult siblings on the disposition of their mother's estate to explore the meaning, passions and memories we invest in objects and our surroundings.
The Other One
Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic, France
When a middle-aged woman discovers her young ex-lover's new girlfriend is her own age, her obsessive jealousy takes its biggest toll on her sense of self as paranoia and self-loathing lead to a full-blown identity crisis.
WHALE TRANCE GATHERING. Listen to live whale music, performed by Pierre Lavagne playing the Shelltone and guests musicians, while you watch a movie of beautiful footages of humpback whales swimming, dancing and singing. A relaxing experience and a unique journey through the most beautiful songs of the ocean. You can bring your own music instrument and share whale songs. Free entrance. Donations.
WHALE MUSIC CONFERENCE. Pierre Lavagne will give a serie of conferences about whale songs and whale music, and perform live with the Shelltone while showing a beautiful movie of whales swimming, and singing.
Danièle Thompson (Jet Lag, SFIFF 2003) returns with another glistening example of the brand of choral comedy she has perfected. A group of friends and acquaintances gather for dinner, and the atmosphere couldn’t be friendlier—with great food, wine and conversation on hand. Slowly the masks of civility drop and suspicions, jealousies and fears emerge. Darker in tone than Thompson’s earlier work, Change of Plans still features her knowing and generous wit. As always, she has gathered a first-rate cast: Karin Viard, Patrick Bruel, Patrick Chesnais, Marina Hands, Dany Boon, Marina Foïs, Emmanuelle Seigner and Pierre Arditi. The seamlessness of their performances is a tribute not only to Thompson’s script, cowritten with her son Christopher, who appears in the film, but also to her very precise orchestration of the action as disparate characters and stories come together. As in her earlier films, Thompson returns to using shared spaces as ways to explore the banalities and transformative junctures of everyday life. With Change of Plans, she inverts the notion of bourgeois complacency, where the notion of settled lives at fortysomething collides with the reality of life-altering changes, mortality, new love and self-discovery. —Rendezvous with French Cinema, 2009
Written by Danièle Thompson, Christopher Thompson. Photographed by Jean-Marc Fabre. With Karin Viard, Dany Boon, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marina Hands. (100 min, IFC)
More information available at http://www.sffs.org/content.aspx?catid=8,59&pageid=1794&TitleId=screen-changeofplans
October 28–November 3, 2010
Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema
This weeklong annual festival brings the most significant new work from one of the world’s most renowned filmmaking countries to discerning Bay Area audiences. Covering a broad spectrum of subject matter and genres, French Cinema Now builds a comprehensive picture of the current moment in Gallic film and delivers some of France’s most vital filmmakers in person to San Francisco audiences. Très magnifique!
Thursday, October 28, reception 9:00 pm
Opening Night
Enjoy Opening Night with director Marc Fitoussi presenting his film Copacabana. A limited number of VIP tickets are available to an exclusive reception after the screening with complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres, 9:00–11:00 pm at the Bubble Lounge, 714 Montgomery Street (at Washington).
Thursday, October 28, 6:45 pm & Friday, October 29, 9:30 pm
Copacabana
Marc Fitoussi (France 2010)
Sharing the screen with her real-life daughter, Isabelle Huppert reaffirms her status as one of cinema’s most indispensable actresses in this charming and honest comedy by Marc Fitoussi.
Thursday, October 28, 9:30 pm & Monday, November 1, 9:15 pm
Rapt
Lucas Belvaux (France 2009)
Based on the real-life 1978 kidnapping of a wealthy playboy, Rapt offers genre entertainment with brains and style about a family that decides not to pay a ransom.
Saturday, October 30, 3:45 pm & Sunday, October 31, 6:45 pm
Sisters
Éléonore Faucher (Gamines, France 2009)
Based on Sylvie Testud’s autobiographical novel, this elegiac film tells the story of three sisters and their overwhelming longing for their absent father.
Friday, October 29, 5:00 pm & Saturday, October 30, 1:45 pm
Irene
Alain Cavalier (France 2009)
This intimate, resolutely small-scale film revisits director Alain Cavalier’s first marriage, abruptly ended by his wife’s fatal car accident in 1972. The result is a sublime thought piece on memory and marriage.
Friday, October 29, 7:00 pm & Sunday, October 31, 9:15 pm
Love Like Poison
Katell Quillévéré (Un poison violent, France 2010)
In one of the more remarkable coming-of-age tales of recent years, a young girl’s confirmation provides the staging ground for issues of faith and sexuality.
Saturday, October 30, 6:30 pm & Sunday, October 31, 3:45 pm
The Princess of Montpensier
Bertrand Tavernier (La Princesse de Montpensier, France 2010)
With realistically bloody battle scenes, a handsome cast and a keen understanding of the intermingling of personal and political, Bertrand Tavernier’s take on the costume romance feels at once true to its time and freshly original.
Saturday, October 30, 9:30 pm & Tuesday, November 2, 6:30 pm
A Real Life
Sarah Leonor (Au voleur, France 2009)
In this assured and visually compelling film, Guillaume Depardieu plays a small-time criminal who finds love just as the cops are closing in. A retreat to the woods poses tantalizing questions.
Sunday, October 31, 1:30 pm
Two in the Wave
Emmanuel Laurent (Deux de la vague, France 2009)
With witty narration and in-depth knowledge of its subject, this informative and entertaining documentary examines the early careers of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.
Monday, November 1, 6:30 pm & Tuesday, November 2, 9:15 pm
Hidden Diary
Julie Lopes-Curval (Mères et filles, France 2009)
Past secrets irrevocably impact present relationships in this moving and graceful drama about three generations of complex and conflicted women. Catherine Deneuve complements a terrific cast.
Wednesday, November 3, 7:00 & 9:15 pm
Certified Copy
Abbas Kiarostami (Copie conforme, France 2010)
Brimming with ideas and observations, Abbas Kiarostami’s gorgeous puzzle of a film features a wonderfully humane, award-winning performance by Juliette Binoche.
Wednesday, November 3, reception 9:00 pm
Closing Night
Celebrate Closing Night with Abbas Kiarostami’s new film Certified Copy. A limited number of VIP tickets are available to a post-screening reception with complimentary wine and appetizers, 9:00–11:00 pm at a nearby restaurant.
For more information visit: http://www.sffs.org/Screenings-and-Events/Fall-Season/French-Cinema-Now.aspx