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RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2011 ANNOUNCED

Posted Thursday, January 27th, 2011 - Comments Off on RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2011 ANNOUNCED
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2011 THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER AND UNIFRANCE PRESENT THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH FILM, MARCH 3-13

Francois Ozon’s “POTICHE,” starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu selected for Opening Night

NEW YORK – January 27, 2011 – The 16th edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance’s celebrated annual showcase of the best in contemporary French film, hits screens at The Film Society, the IFC Center, FIAF and BAMcinématek, March 3-13. A wide selection of titles will be showcased during the series – all in their New York premieres – including films from Catherine Breillat, Francois Ozon, Bertrand Tavernier, Benoit Jacquot, Claude Lelouch, Eric Lartigau and the final film from the late Alain Corneau.

Filmmakers who will be in attendance at this year’s festival include – Catherine Breillat, Claude Lelouch, Benoit Jacquot, Eric Lartigau, René Féret, Martin Provost, François Ozon and Bertrand Tavernier. Among the actors/actresses attending are Catherine Deneuve, Judith Godréche and Gaspard Ulliel.

Opening Night launches with François Ozon’s POTICHE, which will have its New York premiere on Thursday, March 3 at The Paris (4 West 58 Street). Nominated for four Césars, and a bona fide critical and box office hit in France, POTICHE reunites French cinema legends Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu in Francois Ozon’s new comedy about a submissive, housebound ‘trophy housewife’ (or “potiche”) who steps in to manage her wealthy husband’s umbrella factory after the workers go on strike and take him hostage. Acclaimed writer-director Francois Ozon (SWIMMING POOL, UNDER THE SAND, TIME TO LEAVE) who had previously directed Ms. Deneuve in the international hit 8 WOMEN, twists the original play on its head to create his own satirical and hilarious take on the war between the sexes and classes.

“Rendezvous with French Cinema is one the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s marquee international programs.  This year, we are thrilled to welcome film legends Catherine Denueve and Bertrand Tavernier, as well as introduce audiences to the work of Eric Lartigua and Gaspard Ulliel,” said Rose Kuo, Executive Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Other highlights at this year’s festival include: “A Conversation with Claude Lelouch” and a tribute to the late Alain Corneau. Lelouch, a winner of the Palme d’Or and Academy Award for A MAN AND A WOMAN (UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME), known for his lush visual style, will discuss his career and latest release, WHAT LOVE MAY BRING. FSLC Associate Director of Programming Scott Foundas will serve as moderator.

The tribute to Alain Corneau will feature the screening of his final film, LOVE CRIME (CRIME D’AMOUR). A delicious thriller of rivalry, seduction and humiliation set against office politics starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier as mentor and ingénue that results in murder. Also screening as part of the tribute to Corneau will be the 1979 classic SÉRIE NOIRE. Based on Jim Thompson’s potboiler A Hell of a Woman, Corneau’s SÉRIE NOIRE is considered one of the most remarkable French crime dramas.

“The goal of our Rendez-Vous festival has always been to provide an incisive and broad ranging look at contemporary French cinema and this year’s selection of films is exceptional in that regard,” says Richard Peña, Program Director at The Film Society.

“We’re happy to provide such a rich selection of new French films for this 16th edition,” says Régine Hatchondo, Executive Director of Unifrance. “The impact of this film festival is underscored by the partnership and efforts of Film Society, IFC Center, BAM and FIAF this year to offer New York City fans of French cinema greater access to see these wonderful films.”

For Lincoln Center screenings, Film Society of Lincoln Center Members enjoy an advance on-sale priority ordering period beginning on February 10th and Film Society Patrons enjoy priority ticketing starting on that same date. For IFC Center screenings, IFC Center Members enjoy an advance on-sale priority ordering period beginning on February 10th.

General Public Tickets for the 2011 Rendez-Vous series at both locations will go on sale February 17th. Tickets for BAMcinématek will go on sale by mid-February.

Tickets are available online for each participating venue at www.filmlinc.com, www.ifccenter.com, www.bam.org/cinematek, and www.fiaf.org respectively, as well as directly from the box offices. For more information, call The Film Society at (212) 875-5601, the IFC Center at (212) 924-7771, or BAMcinématek at (718) 636-4100 x2 or please visit: www.rendezvouswithfrenchcinema.com.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater’s address is 165 West 65th St. (between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway). The IFC Center is located at 323 Sixth Ave. at West 3rd Street. FIAF’s address is 22 East 60th Street. BAMcinématek at BAM Rose Cinemas is located at 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn.

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2011, March 3-13

Films & descriptions

OPENING NIGHT SELECTION

POTICHE

Director: François Ozon

Running time: 103m

Set in 1977 in a provincial French town, POTICHE is an adaptation of the 1970s eponymous hit play. Catherine Deneuve delivers a glorious, career-crowning performance as a submissive, housebound ‘trophy housewife’ (or  “potiche,”) who steps in to manage her wealthy and tyrannical husband’s umbrella factory after the workers go on strike and take him hostage. Gérard Depardieu plays a former union leader and Suzanne’s ex-beau who still holds a flame for her. POTICHE is a Music Box Films release.

THE BIG PICTURE (L’HOMME QUI VOULAIT VIVRE SA VIE)

Director: Eric Lartigau

Running time: 115m

A frustrated lawyer and family man (played by one of France’s hottest young stars, Romain Duris) makes the most out of one moment of violence, which forces him to assume a new identity. Adapted from Douglas Kennedy’s acclaimed novel, the film also stars Niels Arestrup and Catherine Deneuve.

DEEP IN THE WOODS (AU FOND DES BOIS)

Director: Benoit Jacquot

Running time: 102m

Jacquot’s jaw-dropping, feverish tale concerns a young villager (Isild Le Besco) who literally falls under the spell of a fierce, svengali-like vagabond (Nahuel Perez Biscayart).

FREE HANDS (LES MAINS LIBRES)

Director: Brigitte Sy

Running time: 100m

Barbara is a filmmaker who is in the process of making a film about prison life. Twice a week, she visits a prison in the suburbs of Paris to interview inmates who will both write and act in the film. It is through these meetings that Barbara meets Michel, one of the prisoners who will help her prepare the film. Their love for one another will lead them to break the law…

FROM ONE FILM TO ANOTHER (D’UN FILM Á L’AUTRE)

Director: Claude Lelouch

Running time: 104m

On the occasion of his 50th year in cinema, Oscar-winning A MAN AND A WOMAN director Claude Lelouch turns his famously swooping, pirouetting camera on himself for this uncommonly revealing auto-portrait.

Followed by:

A Conversation with Claude Lelouch

Where A MAN AND HIS FILMS leaves off, Lelouch will continue in person in this career-spanning dialogue with the Film Society’s Scott Foundas, featuring clips and a Q&A.

HANDS UP (LES MAINS EN L’AIR)

Director: Romain Goupil

Running time: 90m

A tender, engaging and bracingly militant drama from director Romain Goupil: a story of youth, solidarity and contemporary France, with Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and a terrific cast of children. A Chechan woman named Milana, recalls the story of her near-deportation from France at the age of ten and the plan her young classmates hatched to save her.

HAPPY FEW

Director: Antony Cordier

Running time: 103m

Two Parisian couples agree to swap partners in Cordier’s psychologically sharp and slyly sexy take on changing the rules. The film stars Elodie Bouchez (THE DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS) and Marina Foïs.

LEILA (TOI, MOI, LES AUTRES)

Director: Audrey Estrougo

Running time: 87m

With clever, color-saturated numbers, this catchy musical love story about a pampered slacker and an ambitious Arab law student is a West Side Story for the 21st century set to the songs of the 60s and 70s in France and against the backdrop of the “sans papiers” protests that end with the occupation of Saint Bernard Church in Paris.

LIVING ON LOVE ALONE (D’AMOUR ET D’EAU FRAÎCHE)

Director: Isabelle Czajka

Running time: 89m

One of French cinema’s vital new voices delivers an outlaw romance and social critique starring terrific newcomer, Anaïs Demoustier as a smart bored twentysomething who finds an alternative to lackey work and high rents—running off with a guy and a gun.

THE LONG FALLING (OÙ VA LA NUIT)

Director: Martin Provost

Running time: 105m

Martin Provost is re-teaming with SERAPHINE star Yolande Moreau for this heartfelt drama, based on Keith Ridgway’s novel. The film follows the story of a long-suffering wife who takes revenge and bonds with her gay son in this suspenseful one-of-a-kind story of sin and salvation.

LOVE CRIME (CRIME D’AMOUR)

Director: Alain Corneau

Running time: 106m

Corneau’s last film, LOVE CRIME is a delicious thriller of rivalry, seduction and humiliation set against office politics starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier as mentor and ingénue that results in murder. LOVE CRIME is a Sundance Selects release.

LOVE LIKE POISON (UN POISON VIOLENT)

Director: Katell Quillévéré

Running time: 92m

This award-winning debut from young French director, Katell Quillévéré, is a true discovery with a title taken from a Gainsbourg song. Fourteen-year-old Anna comes home from Catholic boarding school to family turmoil and becomes caught between her own religious belief and sexual stirrings, awakened by a precocious choirboy friend.

MOZART’S SISTER (LA SOEUR DE MOZART)

Director: René Féret

Running time: 120m

MOZART’S SISTER is a dynamic biopic centering on the other musical prodigy in the Mozart family.14-year-old Nannerl lives in the shadow of her famous younger brother as they travel throughout Europe performing for royalty. However, with the encouragement of the handsome French Dauphin, she finds her own ways of challenging the established sexual and social order. MOZART’S SISTER is a Music Box Films release.

THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER (LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER)

Director: Bertrand Tavernier

Running time: 139m

Master director Bertrand Tavernier makes a grand return to large-scale period filmmaking with this sexy, powerful saga of unrequited love and diabolical intrigue in the French religious wars of the 16th century, based on a short story by Madame de La Fayette. PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER is an Sundance Selects release.

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS (LA REINE DES POMMES)

Director: Valérie Donzelli

Running time: 84m

Donzelli directs, writes and also stars in THE QUEEN OF HEARTS, a quintessentially French screwball romantic comedy about a freshly dumped hopeless romantic juggling three suitors (all played by Jérémie Elkaïm!). With Béatrice de Staël.

SÉRIE NOIRE (1979)

Director: Alain Corneau

Running time: 111m

SÉRIE NOIRE follows a slightly neurotic door-to-door salesman (extraordinary, wild-eyed Patrick Dewaere) in a sinister part of Paris’ suburbs. He meets a teenager, who’s been made a prostitute by her own aunt. Wanting to change his life and also save the girl from her aunt, he arrives at murder as the only solution.

SERVICE ENTRANCE (LES FEMMES DU SIXIÈME ÉTAGE)

Director: Philippe Le Guay

Running time: 104m

A stockbroker (marvelous Fabrice Luchini) lives a peaceful, boring existence in 1960s Paris with his socialite wife (Sandrine Kiberlain)—until some exuberant Spanish maids move in upstairs. With Carmen Maura and Lola Dueñas.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY (LA BELLE ENDORMIE)
Director: Catherine Breillat

Running time: 82m

In Catherine Breillat’s continually surprising take on the classic fairy tale where three scatterbrained fairies manage to alter a curse of death placed upon a little girl. Now fated to fall asleep for 100 years after the girl’s hand is pierced in her sixteenth year, the fairies further bestow upon her the possibility of wandering far and wide in her dreams during those 100 years of sleep. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY is a Strand Releasing release.

THINK GLOBAL ACT RURAL (SOLUTIONS LOCALES POUR DÈSORDRE GLOBAL)

Director: Coline Serreau

Running time: 113m

In what’s already been called a “radical and exhilarating” documentary manifesto, the unstoppable Serreau digs into the problem of industrialized agriculture, quizzing farmers and philosophers alike, across the globe.

TOP FLOOR, LEFT WING (DERNIER ÉTAGE, GAUCHE, GAUCHE)

Director: Angelo Clanci

Running time: 110m

A state persecutor (Hippolyte Girardot) gets sucked into a hostage crisis involving a Berber neighbor in this deft balance of the comedy of mistaken identity and the politics of terror.

WHAT LOVE MAY BRING (CES AMOURS-LÁ)

Director: Claude Lelouch

Running time: 120m

A woman reflects on her turbulent youth and all the men she has ever loved in her life in this inimitable romantic epic, which Lelouch calls “a remake of my 41 films,” spans decades in the love life of a cinema usherette. With “cameos” from Belmondo et al.

About the Film Society of Lincoln Center

The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals. The New York Film Festival annually premieres films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States. New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, focuses on emerging film talents. Since 1972, when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, its annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor or filmmaker who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine. For more information, visit: www.FilmLinc.com

The Film Society receives generous year-round support from American Airlines, 42BELOW, the New York Times, Stella Artois, illy caffe, the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About Unifrance

Founded in 1949, Unifrance is a government-sponsored association of French film industry professionals dedicated to the international promotion of French films. With offices in Paris, New York, Tokyo and Beijing, Unifrance provides financial and logistical support to theatrical distributors and major film festivals showcasing new and recent French cinema throughout the world.  For more information, visit http://en.unifrance.org/

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

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I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

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~ David Simon