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2004 Festival Feature Films

The VCU French Film Festival welcomes, as honorary president, film director Claude Miller accompanied by producer Annie Miller.

 


director: Sam Karmann screenplay: Sam Karmann, Désir Carré producer: Sam Karmann starring: Gérard Lanvin, Jacques Gamblin, Clovis Cornillac, Julie Durand, Florence Pernel, Jean-Pierre Lazzerini release date: June 25th, 2003 running time: 100mn

Description:
The story unfolds over the course of a short week, at “Chez Roger”, a bar and restaurant in the Paris neighborhood of Saint-Ouen, retracing the paths of a multitude of its local characters. More than old neighborhood stories and local anecdotes, these are tales of friendship between men whose dreams intertwine though their fates diverge…
 

 

director: Jean Becker screenplay: Sébastien Japrisot producer: Louis Becker starring: Jacques Villeret, André Dussollier, Thierry Lhermitte, Benoît Magimel, Isabelle Candelier, Suzanne Flon, Bernie Collins release date: March 26th, 2003 running time: 95mn

Description:
Lucien, a fourteen-year old boy, doesn’t understand why his father, a well-respected and serious-minded school-teacher, regularly makes a fool of himself through his silly amateur clown bit. One day, André, his father’s best friend, reveals to Lucien the story behind his father’s strange pass-time… He explains that when the war ended, they both committed an act of petty resistance, which got them captured by the Germans and thrown into a ditch where they awaited the firing squad… Through André’s story, Lucien will discover the courage and loyalty that lie hidden in his father’s humility.
   

director: Pierre Jolivet screenplay: Pierre Jolivet, Simon Michaël producer: Alain Sarde starring: Sandrine Kiberlain, Sylvie Testud, François Berléand, Roschdy Zem, Vincent Lindon release date: June 11th, 2003 running time: 85mn

Description:
After six years of school, Carole, a young prosecutor, is a bit square. She has a passion for justice. Tina, a repeat burglar, has two months of hard time under her belt and isn’t stiff in the slightest. She has a passion for shoes. After meeting at the Court House, they become inseparable, perhaps because Tina inspires Carole, or because Carole comforts Tina. Or maybe, it’s because they’re both only daughters – and each could be the sister the other never had. And if they don’t always agree on what is right or wrong, they’ll soon make the pleasant discovery that mistakes are best made together.
   

director: Claude Miller screenplay: Claude Miller, Annie Miller, Julien Boivent producer: Annie Miller starring: Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, Bernard Giraudeau, Jean Pierre Marielle, Robinson Stévenin, Marc Betton, Yves Jacques, Anne Le Ny release date: August 27th, 2003 running time: 104 mn

Description:
Mado, a famous actress, is spending the summer vacation in Brittany, along with her brother Simon, her son Julien, an aspiring filmmaker, and Brice, her current lover and the director of her latest films. Wracked by a tumultuous relationship with his mother, Julien is also madly in love with Lili, a young “local” who dreams of becoming an actress. Lili cares for him, but she is fascinated by Brice, an established director who seems to recognize her spark. Lili asks him to leave everything behind and take her to Paris. Five years later, Lili has become a famous actress, and she is no longer with Brice. She happens to learn that Julien is about to shoot his first feature film, and that he has mentioned her…
   

director: Jacques-Rémi Girerd screenplay: ? producer: Patrick Eveno starring: Michel Piccoli, Coline Girerd, Kévin Hervé, Laurentine Milebo, Jacques Higelin, Annie Girardot, Michel Galabru, Manuela Gourary release date: December 3rd , 2003 running time: ?

Description:
At the edge of the world, far from everything, a peaceful family has made its home in a pretty farmhouse perched atop a hill. In this cozy nest live Ferdinand, an old retired sailor, his wife Juliette from Africa, and their adopted son Tom. At the foot of the hill, their neighbors, the Lamottes, are about to leave for Africa to buy a pair of crocodiles. Juliette and Ferdinand have kindly offered to take care of Lili, the Lamottes’ only daughter, during the length of their time away. Both children are overjoyed by this fortunate set of circumstances bringing them closer together. But the very evening of the Lamottes’ departure, the nearby countryside resounds with a frightening rumbling...
   

director: Isabelle Nanty screenplay: Isabelle Nanty, Fabrice Roger-Lacan producer: Claude Berri starring: Edouard Baer, Isabelle Nanty, Pierre-François Martin Laval, Juliette Duval release date: June 4th, 2003 running time: 96 mn

Description:
Louis Le Bison is something of a loner, a bit misanthropic and slightly bohemian. On the other hand, Dorine, the superintendent of his building is a wife and the soon-to-be mother of five. The two have diametrically opposed personalities.
But one day, they find themselves having to help each other out when Dorine’s husband leaves to start a new life with Louis’ girlfriend.
   

director: Martin Valente starring: Lorant Deutsch, Jalil Lespert, Pascal Légitimus, François Berléand, Barbara Cabrita, Sara Martins

Description:
At twenty-five, Christopher and Jipé face the hardships of life in the projects gracefully and without bitterness. Work in a grocery store for one and odd jobs for the other leaves them with plenty of time to dream about girls – Jipé’s sister Malika and Christophe’s cousin Maya. Fearlessly in love but hopelessly awkward, they will have to come up with something brilliant to catch their attention. Unfortunately, these two girls think of nothing but their studies, and the freedom and fun with which they will be rewarded. Not insecure in the least, and dead set on being themselves, Jipé and Christophe somehow wind up as the baffled witnesses of a botched hold-up, the forbidden spectators of a theatrical representation, and confused hostages stuck for days in the countryside. But what of the girls? They’ll find out as soon as their circumstances allow them to.
   

director: Valérie Guignabodet starring: Albert Dupontel, Marianne Denicourt, Philippe Uchan, Marina Tomé, Sophie Mounicot

Description:
The body of a calendar girl. Never busy, never down with a headache. No tears, no scenes. Her name is Monique, and this inflatable doll is about to change Alex and Claire’s lives forever…
   

director: Antoine de Caunes screenplay: René Manzor producer: Pierre Kubel starring: Philippe Torreton, Richard E. Grant, Elsa Zylberstein, Stéphane Freiss, Bruno Putzulu, Frédéric Pierrot, Siobhan Hewlett, Jay Rodan, Keira Knightley release date: February 12th, 2002 running time: 120 mn

Description:
Exiled by his enemies to Saint-Helen, a small island lost in the Atlantic, Napoleon lands there on October 17th, 1815. Here, under the constant watch of a thousand English soldiers, surrounded by loyal friends and scheming enemies, torn between two women, the general spends six last years that historians would qualify as “incomprehensible, irrational”. But the most important question also remains – how could Napoleon, the warrior without equal, the brilliant political and military strategist, have accepted this prison of open air and high seas? Here, in Saint-Helen, he would deliver a mysterious battle; his last, but his most important – and the one which history has never revealed.
   

director : Pascale Ferran screenplay: Pierre Trividic, Pascale Ferran producer: Aline Mehouel starring: Didier Sandre, Charles Berling, Catherine Ferran, Sabrina Leurquin release date: le 4 octobre 1994 running time: 108 mn

Description:
A beach in Brittany under the August afternoon sun. Against the tide line, a forty-five year old man starts to build a sandcastle. From different places on the beach, three individuals are watching each other. A beach sweltering under the sun seems a strange place to speak of the deceased, and these are strange characters to boot. On one side, there is Jumbo, a little boy with protruding ears and a dumbfounding memory who has lost his best friend. On the other side, we have François and Zaza, the brother and sister of the sandcastle’s architect, who have recognized the setting as their childhood beach… Through their dreams, memories, and obsessions, the film goes back and forth from each of their worlds. Three characters: a child, a thirty-year old scientist, and a middle-aged woman – all trying to “come to terms” with their departed loved ones.
   

director: Michel Deville starring: Denis Podalydès, Zabou Breitman, Simon Abkarian, Lubna Azabal, Clotilde Courau, Vincent Elbaz, Julie Gayet, Stanislas Merhar, Malik Zidi

Description:
It is August of 1946. A ladies’ wear sewing shop in a Jewish neighborhood of Paris decides to reopen for business – without anticipating the possible problems that could ensue. Damaged by the war but determined to stay put, four women, five men and a handful of children take on the gambles of life with light-heartedness and grace.
   

en français | time schedule | feature films | short films | program (pdf)



 
 

 

 


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