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2006 Festival Feature Films

 


French director Jérôme Salle presents this North American premiere of Anthony Zimmer

director: Jérôme Salle screenplay: Jérôme Salle producers: Marc Missonier, Olivier Delbosc (Fidélité Productions), Alain Terzian (Alter Films) starring: Sophie Marceau, Yvan Attal, Sami Frey running time: 90 min. release date: April 4, 2005 parental guidance

Description
On his way to spend a few days vacation on the French Riviera, François is seduced by Chiara, the kind of dream creature that he usually only catches a glimpse of on magazine covers. When she sits down across from him on the high-speed train and invites him to spend the weekend with her in a palace, François, entranced by the young woman’s charisma and beauty, accepts. Naturally, François lives a total fairy tale up until the day someone tries to kill him. And it’s just then that Chiara suddenly disappears without a trace…
   

French director Bertrand Tavernier and French actor Philippe Torreton present this special screening of Ça commence aujourd’hui 

director: Bertrand Tavernier screenplay: Bertrand Tavernier and Dominique Sampiero producer: Les Films Alain Sarde starring: Philippe Torreton, Maria Pitarresi running time: 107 min. general audience

Description
Daniel is the schoolmaster of a kindergarten in a small French town. The local economy, which depended entirely on coal production, has been mired in a depression ever since the mines were closed. When their parents fall into utter discouragement or even poverty because of prolonged unemployment, the children suffer the consequences. Daniel is confronted daily with difficult situations and he feels responsible to deal with them although they are outside the scope of his responsibilities. He soldiers on with the staff of the kindergarten, all doing their best to educate the children of a severely disrupted society. 
 

French director Bertrand Tavernier and French cameraman Pierre William Glenn present this special screening of Coup de torchon

director: Bertrand Tavernier screenplay: Bertrand Tavernier and Jean Aurenche producers: Henri Lassa and Adolphe Viezzi starring: Philippe Noiret, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran running time: 128 min. mature audience

Description
1938, in a French African colony. Lucien Cordier is the cop of a small village, populated with blacks and a few whites (usually dumb, racist and lustful). He is a washout, whom everyone, including his wife Huguette, humiliates. He never arrests anyone and looks elsewhere when a dirty trick occurs. But one day, he turns into a Machiavellian exterminating angel.
   

French director Jacques Audiard and French actor Romain Duris present this screening of De battre mon coeur s’est arrêté

director: Jacques Audiard screenplay: Jacques Audiard and Tonino Benacquista producers: Pascal Caucheteux and Grégoire Sorlat (Why Not Productions) starring: Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup, Linh Dan Pham, Aure Atika, Emmanuelle Devos, Jonathan Zaccaï running time: 107 min. parental guidance

2006 César for Best French Film of the Year
2006 César for Best Director
2006 César for Best Supporting Male Actor
2006 César for Best New Female Actress
2006 César for Best Image

 

Description
Tom is 28 and destined to follow in his father’s footsteps in the sleazy and sometimes brutal world of real estate. But a chance encounter leads him to believe that he can become, like his mother, a concert pianist. He starts preparing in earnest for the audition with a virtuoso Chinese pianist. She doesn’t speak a word of French – music is their only exchange. But pressures from the ugly world of his “day job” soon become more than he can handle.
 

 

French directors Marie Pérennou and Claude Nuridsany present this screening of Genesis

directors: Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou screenplay: Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou producer: Alain Sarde starring: Sotigui Kouyaté running time: 80 min. release date: Oct. 20, 2004 general audience

Description
With tones of both gravity and humor, both innocence and wisdom, an African storyteller relates the early times of the universe and stars, the burning beginning of our planet and the appearance of life. It might look like a tale, but it is real life, the life of all of us. He tells us about time, matter, birth, love and death, and animals are the leads of this heroic, modern and, yet, timeless Genesis.
   

French director Patrick Bouchitey and French actress Laetitia Chardonnet present this North American premiere of Imposture

director: PatrickBouchitey screenplay: Patrick Bouchitey, Gilles Laurent, Jackie Berroyer, Gaelle Mace producer: EuropaCorp starring: Patrick Bouchitey, Laetitia Chardonnet, Isabelle Renauld, Ariane Ascaride, Patrick Catalifo, Didier Flamand running time: 101 min. release date: May 25, 2005 mature audience

Description
A fearsome literary critic adrift in a humdrum life, Serge Pommier still hasn’t written the book the world has always expected of him. To make ends meet he works as a university literature professor. Then one of his students, Jeanne, submits to him a wonderful manuscript. … Serge knows he should have written this. He could have written it. Jeanne’s novel is a sure-fire guarantee of the recognition he has long hoped for. He decides to abduct Jeanne and steal her text. Ensnared by their secrets, unspoken truths, the desire for love and the thirst for revenge, they become each other’s prisoners.

   

French director Patrick Braoudé presents this North American premiere of Iznogoud

director: Patrick Braoudé screenplay: Patrick Braoudé producers: Aïssa Diabri and Farid Lahouassa starring: Jacques Villeret, Michael Youn, Olivier Barroux, Kad Merad, Franck Dubosc, Bernard Farcy, Elsa Pataky running time: 108 min. release date: Feb. 2, 2005 general audience

Description
Set long ago in the magnificent caliphate of Baghdad, this is the story of the kind and childish caliph, Haroun El Poussah, who rules over his adoring subjects with joy and compassion. The only polluted note in the caliph’s harmonious realm is his covetous vizir, Iznogoud, who spends every waking moment (and some sleeping ones as well) plotting ways to kill the benevolent leader and take his place.
   

French director Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe and French actor Philippe Torreton present this North American premiere of Jaurès :naissance d’un géant

director: Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe screenplay: Jean-Michel Gaillard and Jacques Kirshner producer: Jacques Kirshner starring: Philippe Torreton, Valérie Kaprisky, Frédéric Van Der Driessche, Florence Pernel, Pierre Vernier running time: 100 min. release date: April 25, 2005 general audience

Description
This film is the story of the birth of a giant — Jean Jaurès. On Aug. 16, 1892 , in Carmaux, 2,000 miners rebelled: their socialist mayor, Calvignac, has been dismissed by the owner of “La Compagnie des Mines,” the marquis of Solages. At 34 years of age, Jaurès is a prominent young citizen and one of the most promising moderate republicans. … In the few weeks of this strike, he chooses his destiny by siding with the oppressed ones. He will become the representative of the poorest and the symbol of republican and international socialism.

   

French director Stéphane Brizé and actress Anne Consigny present this screening of Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé

director: Stéphane Brizé screenplay: Stéphane Brizé and Juliette Sales producers: Miléna Poylo and Gilles Sacuto, TS Productions starring: Patrick Chesnais, Anne Consigny, Georges Wilson, Lionel Abelanski running time: 93 min. release date: Oct. 12, 2005 general audience

Description
Jean-Claude Delsart, a 50-year-old bailiff, with his worn-out smile and heart, abandoned the idea that life could bring him pleasures a long time ago. Until the day he took it upon himself to push open the door of a tango school…

   

French actor Jalil Lespert presents this screening of Le Promeneur du Champ de Mars

director: Robert Guéduguian screenplay: Georges-Marc Benamou and Gilles Taurand producers: Robert Guédiguian, Frank Le Wita, Marc de Bayser starring: Michel Bouquet, Jalil Lespert running time: 117 min. release date: Feb. 16, 2005 general audience

2006 César for Best Actor

Description
This movie tells the story of the end of François Mitterrand’s reign and life. While the French president is sick and fighting illness, a passionate young journalist tries to drag last confessions out of him — universal lessons about history and politics, love and literature, certitudes about life. But the old man is tapped out because now is a time for him where past, present and future become one, as well as a time of doubts, where all men become equal in the face of death.
   

French director and screenwriter Serge Frydman presents this North American premiere of Mon ange

director: Serge Frydman screenplay: Serge Frydman producers: Claudie Ossard and Marin Karmitz starring: Vanessa Paradis, Vincent Rottiers, Eduardo Noriega running time: 94 min. release date: Jan. 1, 2005 parental guidance

Description
One night Colette gets a phone call that isn’t intended for her. A woman she’s never heard of, who’s getting out of prison, asks her to go and pick up her little boy and bring him to meet her at a train station the next day. Colette goes to pick up the boy — a certain Billy — who is actually no child but dangerously close to adulthood. In the station at the appointed time, Colette fails to find Billy’s mother, little knowing that Billy has just been orphaned due to a murky business about a debt. Although she doesn’t know yet, Billy’s problems have just become Colette’s. Their lives are now linked … because she is all he has in the world … and he, maybe, is all she has, too.
   

French director Tristan Aurouet presents this North American premiere of Narco

directors: Tristan Aurouet and Gilles Lellouche screenplay: Alain Attal, Philippe Lefebvre, Tristan Aurouet, Gilles Lellouche producer: Alain Attal starring: Guillaume Canet, Zabou Breitman, Benoît Poelvoorde, Guillaume Galienne, François Berléand running time: 108 min. release date: Dec. 1, 2004 parental guidance

Description
Gustave Klopp is a narcoleptic — he can fall asleep anywhere, anytime. … Although his disease is not helping him at all in his professional life, it enables him to live extraordinary adventures in his dreams. Gus shares his time with his wife, Pam, who owns a nail salon and dreams of a better life, and with his best friend Lenny Bar, wannabe karate expert and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s biggest fan. This small world could simply be turning ’round, but Gus has decided to react and start group therapy. Then his shrink, Samuel Pupkin, discovers that Gus has been transforming his dreams into amazing comic strips.
   

French director Guy Jacques and French actor Clément Sibony present this North American premiere of Ze film

director: Guy Jacques screenplay: Guy Jacques and Constantine Attia producers: Dominique Esmenard, Pierre-Ange le Pogam starring: Clement Sibony, Dan Erzberg, Micky El Mazroui, Miki Manojlovic, Karina Testa, Lorànt Deutsch running time: 105 min. release date: Feb. 23, 2005 parental guidance

Description
First there’s Goran, known as Kubrick to his friends because of his consuming passion for the movies. Then there’s Karim, whose specialty is more picking up girls than appreciation of Ingmar Bergman’s films. Last of all there’s Didier, a.k.a. Toxic, a dreamer, who inadvertently steps into the middle of a film-shooting area and is mistaken for a crew member. When asked by the assistant director to keep a truck full of film equipment off camera, the nice young man helpfully clears off the set by driving the truck to Bobigny, the housing project where the three friends live. Kubrick, of course, is delighted. This is his dream come true — his chance to make a real movie.
   

en français | time schedule | feature films | short films | program [PDF]



 
 

 

 


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