Press release from ned & co. Marketing and Publicity
Ah, la belle France…renowned for its beauty, culture and, above all else, ‘l’amour’…! So far away and yet tantalizingly close, come 8 March, when the Alliance Française French Film Festival starts its national season.
With an incredible 46 new films in the 2011 line-up, encompassing crime, drama, love, comedy, suspense, historical events, and fascinating documentaries, the 22nd Festival offers a ‘fête’ for Cinephiles and Francophiles alike.
Featuring a galaxy of French and international stars from Sophie Marceau, Isabelle Huppert, Marion Cotillard, François Cluzet, Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Cécile De France, Lambert Wilson, Jean Reno, Virginie Ledoyen, Jean Dujardin, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Audrey Tautou to Kristin Scott Thomas, Nathalie Baye, Sandrine Kiberlain, Daniel Auteuil, Patrick Bruel, Ludivine Sagnier, Fabrice Luchini, Jacques Gamblin and Mathieu Amalric, the Festival is, once again, proudly supported by chief sponsor, Tefal, the world’s leading name in nonstick cookware.
POTICHE, a captivating new comedy from celebrated director François Ozon, set in the 1970s and starring Gérard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini and the ageless Catherine Deneuve as a glamorous but neglected housewife (a ‘potiche’ – a decorative object) who unexpectedly finds herself running the family’s umbrella factory, will have its Australian premiere as the Festival’s opening night movie, and will screen courtesy of Transmission Films.
Additional highlights of the 2011 line-up include:
BEAUTIFUL LIES (De vrais mensonges) Australian Distributor: Transmission Films
Director: Pierre Salvadori (Starring Audrey Tautou and Nathalie Baye)
A fresh and funny romantic comedy about a vivacious hairdresser who concocts a plan to enliven her mother’s life after the latter suffers a serious case of the blues following her marriage break-up.
LITTLE WHITE LIES (Les Petits mouchoirs) Australian Distributor: Hopscotch Films
Director: Guillaume Canet (Starring Marion Cotillard, François Cluzet, Jean Dujardin)
Each year a couple host a gathering at their beautiful beach house where they commence their summer holidays with a group of close friends. Fun, fine wine and seafood mix with sun and sand as they all leave their city stresses behind. But this year, circumstances change, leading to simmering tensions, which threaten to shatter their idyll.
LOVE CRIME (Crime d’Amour) Australian Distributor: Rialto Distribution
Director: Alain Corneau (Starring Ludivine Sagnier and Kristin Scott Thomas)
Against the sterile backdrop of a powerful multi-national company, two women – a young ingénue assistant and a senior executive – cross swords. At first they are friendly, but when the older woman starts to take credit for her younger colleague’s ideas, the ground is prepared for all-out war and a dangerous game begins to unfold.
OF GODS AND MEN (Des Hommes et des Dieux) Australian Distributor: Sony Pictures Australia
Director: Xavier Beauvois (Starring Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale and Olivier Rabourdin)
Set in the mid-1990s and based on a true story, this film follows a community of French Cistercian monks who live in harmony with the local Muslim population deep in the Algerian mountains until they become a target of Islamist fundamentalist rebels. Panic spreads among the inhabitants. The army offers to protect the monks, but they refuse assistance. Should they leave or remain, and if they stay, what will their decision cost them?
ON TOUR (Tournée) Australian Distributor: Aztec International
Director: Mathieu Amalric (Starring Mathieu Amalric, Miranda Colclasure and Suzanne Ramsey)
Joachim, a former Parisian television producer, is set on making a triumphant return to France as the tour manager for a troupe of burlesque performers. However, his plans appear threatened as old wounds are opened and life in bland hotels isn’t what the romantic young hopefuls had imagined.
THE AGE OF REASON (L’âge de raison) Australian Distributor: Palace Films
Director: Yann Samuell (Starring Sophie Marceau, Marton Csokas and Michel Duchaussoy)
Margaret is a high-powered executive who manages her career with steely determination. Her hyper-structured existence leaves little time for a private life. But when she receives a package of long-forgotten letters from her seven year-old self, Margaret becomes overwhelmed by hidden memories of her childhood that throw her worldview into chaos, as she realises that she’s become the exact opposite of the woman she once hoped to be.
THE CLINK OF ICE (Le Bruit des glaçons) International Distributor: Wildbunch
Director: Bertrand Blier (Starring Jean Dujardin and Albert Dupontel)
An alcoholic and misanthropic writer comes face-to-face with a physical manifestation of his own personal suitwearing cancer in this taboo-breaking, intellectual romp from the politically incorrect director, Bertrand Blier.
THE NAME OF LOVE (Le Nom des gens) Australian Distributor: Rialto Distribution
Director: Michel Leclerc (Starring Jacques Gambin and Sara Forestier)
Bahia, a free-spirited Algerian liberal, aims to convert right-wing men by sleeping with them and murmuring political ideologies at their most vulnerable moment. When she meets Arthur, a 40-something Jewish scientist she mistakenly assumes he is a ‘conversion’ target, but against all odds, these two very different people fall in love.
THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER (La Princesse de Montpensier) Australian Distributor: Madman Films
Director: Bertrand Tavernier (Starring Mélanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson and Gaspard Ulliel)
France, 1562. The battle of religion between Catholics and Protestants rages against a backdrop of intrigue and shifting alliances. Marie de Mézières, a wealthy and beautiful young aristocrat and Henri de Guise, one of the kingdom’s most intrepid heroes, are in love. However, Marie’s father promises her hand in marriage to the Prince of Montpensier. But love and war are never simple, as this haunting and sumptuous tale proves.
THE WOMEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR (Les Femmes du sixième étage) Australian Distributor: Palace Films
Director: Phillippe Le Guay (Starring Fabrice Luchini, Sandrine Kiberlain and Carmen Maura)
Paris, 1960. A wealthy stockbroker and his perfectly presented socialite wife, enjoy a staid bourgeois existence. But when they hire Maria, a vivacious young Spanish maid, who befriends the other servants on the sixth floor of their building, the balance of the household ruptures into wild, cross-cultural chaos.
TWO IN THE WAVE (Deux de la vague) Australian Distributor: IFM Films
Director: Emmanuel Laurent
A fascinating account of the volatile friendship between François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, the two leaders of the French New Wave, who stormily conquered the film world in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
National Dates for the 2011 Alliance Française French Film Festival are:
SYDNEY: 8 – 27 March Palace Verona, Palace Norton Street, Chauvel Cinema & Cremorne
Orpheum
MELBOURNE: 9 – 27 March Palace Cinema Como, Palace Balwyn, Palace Westgarth, Palace Brighton
Bay & Kino Cinemas
BRISBANE: 16 March – 3 April Palace Centro & Palace Barracks Cinema
CANBERRA: 16 March – 3 April Greater Union Manuka & Arc Cinema, National Film & Sound Archive
PERTH: 23 March – 10 April Cinema Paradiso & Luna on SX
ADELAIDE: 23 March – 10 April Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas
For booking and session details, visit the Festival's Official Website.