Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2011
North America’s leading showcase for the best in contemporary French film returns! Works by several of France’s best-known filmmakers—Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Lelouch, Catherine Breillat, Benoît Jacquot—are included alongside outstanding debuts by Katell Quillévéré, Valérie Donzelli, and Angelo Cianci, and two programs of experimental media works. Finally, we are delighted to welcome back Catherine Deneuve, who will be with us to present the delightful Potiche. All films are New York premieres!
Lineup
Potiche
Catherine Deneuve delivers a glorious, career-crowning performance at the center of this frothy 1970s labor-relations farce from director François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women). Deneuve plays 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. A bona fide critical and box office hit in France, Potiche has been nominated for four Césars. A Music Box Films release.
The Big Picture
Bringing new meaning to the term “identity crisis,” Romain Duris (one of France’s hottest young stars) plays a creatively frustrated lawyer and family man who makes the most out of one moment of violence. Adapted from Douglas Kennedy’s acclaimed novel, the film also stars Niels Arestrup and Catherine Deneuve. Director in person!
Deep in the Woods
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). Director in person!
Free Hands
A filmmaker (Ronit Elkabetz) working on a prison project falls hard for an inmate (Carlo Brandt). Their love for one another will lead them to break the law. Brigitte Sy's feature directorial debut is a moving and boundary-crossing love story.
From One Film to Another
On the occasion of his 50th year in cinema, Oscar-winning director Claude Lelouch turns his famously swooping, pirouetting camera on himself for this uncommonly revealing auto-portrait
Hands Up
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 Chechen 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. Director in person!
Happy Few
Electrically attracted, two Parisian couples agree to swap partners in Cordier’s psychologically sharp and slyly sexy take on changing the rules... With Marina Foïs, Élodie Bouchez.
Leila
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
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
Martin Provost re-teams with Séraphine 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
The late, great Corneau’s final film: corporate overlord Kristin Scott Thomas and underling Ludivine Sagnier cross swords in a cutthroat battle (to the death?). It is a delicious thriller of rivalry, seduction and humiliation set against office politics. A Sundance Selects release.
Love Like Poison
Fourteen-year-old Anna (fresh face Clara Augarde) comes home from Catholic boarding school to family turmoil and a gawky crush. She becomes caught between her own religious belief and sexual stirrings, awakened by a precocious choirboy friend. This award-winning debut from young French director, Katell Quillévéré, is a true discovery with a title taken from a Gainsbourg song. Winner of the Jean Vigo Award.
Mozart’s Sister
A dynamic biopic centering on the other musical prodigy in the Mozart family. Fourteen-year-old Nannerl is a second-banana prodigy, living 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.
The Princess of Montpensier
Master director Bertrand Tavernier makes a grand return to large-scale period filmmaking with this 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. A Sundance Selects release.
The Queen of Hearts
In her delightful directorial debut, actress Valérie Donzelli plays a freshly dumped hopeless romantic juggling three suitors (all played by Jérémie Elkaïm!). With Béatrice de Staël.
Série noire
A skeezy salesman (extraordinary, wild-eyed Patrick Dewaere) in Paris’s outer limits commits murder to escape a debt. A witty adaption of the Jim Thompson novel by the late, great Alain Corneau.
Service Entrance
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
In Breillat’s continually surprising take on the fairy tale, the cursed young Anastasia comes of age in her dreams, then awakens to the challenges of adolescent reality. Director in person! A Strand Releasing release.
Think Global, Act Rural
Serreau’s “radical and exhilarating” documentary manifesto digs into the problem of industrialized agriculture, quizzing farmers and philosophers across the globe. Director in person! Co-presented by Green Screens.
Top Floor, Left Wing
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. Winner of the FIPRESCI international press award at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival!
What Love May Bring
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,” spanning decades in the love life of a cinema usherette. With “cameos” from Belmondo et al.
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