INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018 / FRENCH FILMS
The year again the International Film Festival of the University Of North Carolina Of Charlotte, sponsored by the Alliance Française, experiences the rich world of contemporary films.The festival and related special events are free and open to the public, and all films are subtitled. The Festival will provide from Monday March, 12 to Friday April, 6 some amazing international films. Please find below the French Films selected to this year events. Please note that one presentation will be at the St Ann Catholic School in Myers Park.
Click on the film title for more information. To find out more about other films
Marguerite
Tuesday, March 13, 6:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Xavier Giannoli, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, 2016 / 129 min.
Ma Vie de courgette / My Life as a Zucchini
Monday, March 19, 2:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Claude Barras,France, Switzerland, 2016 / 68 min.
Quand on a 17 ans/ Being 17
Tuesday, March 20, 6:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
André Téchiné, France, 2016 / 116 min.
Au hasard Balthazar
Wednesday, March 21, 1:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Robert Bresson, France, 1966 / 95 min.
Ma Vie de courgette / My Life as a Zucchini
Saturday, March 24, 11:00am, St Ann Catholic School, Charlotte
Claude Barras,France, Switzerland, 2016 / 68 min.
Ma Vie de courgette / My Life as a Zucchini
Saturday, March 24, 2:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, McKnight Hall, Cone Center
Claude Barras,France, Switzerland, 2016 / 68 min.
Fatima
Monday, March 26, 5:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Philippe Faucon, France, 2016 / 79 min.
La Mort de Louis XIV/ The Death of Louis XIV
Thursday, March 29, 5:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, McKnight Hall, Cone Center,
Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain, 2016 / 115 min.
Autres films
Monday April 2
12:30pmTwaaga(Burkina Faso / France, 2013, 30 min.),followed by Q& A/panel with Director Cedric Ido
Tuesday 3
7:00pmHasakiYaSuda(Burkina Faso / France, 2011, 24 min.),followed by Q& A/panel with Director Cedric Ido
Friday 6– McKnight, Noon to 10:00pm
2:00pm Chateau (France, 2017, 81min), followed by Q& A/panel with Director Cedric Ido
Marguerite
Tuesday, March 13, 6:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Xavier Giannoli, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, 2016 / 129 min.
French with English subtitles
Presented as part ofThe Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’ImageAnimée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
Additional sponsors are theAlliance Française de Charlotteand theUNC Charlotte French Club.
Introduction byMary LaMarca, Lecturer of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.
Marguerite Dumont is an incredibly wealthy woman who has devoted herlife to singing opera. There’s only one problem and it’s a problem no one willdare to mention to her, starting with her husband: she cannot sing in tune tosave her life. From this brilliant premise based on the true story of FlorenceFoster Jenkins, the American socialite and calamitous singer who inspiredthe recent Meryl Streep film (and a character in Citizen Kane), writer-director
Xavier Gianolli draws a marvelously rich tale, mining the comic possibilities aswell as the genuine tragedy of a woman living in a world of illusion sustainedby sycophants. Gianolli also creates a striking portrait of Paris in the twenties,taking in the aristocratic milieu as well as the ferment of subversive artmovements and the Bohemian demimonde. Marguerite is a tour de force ofcontrolled chaos, brimming with eccentric characters and opulent set pieces,all orbiting around the irresistible figure of Marguerite, a woman whosededication is an inspiration—until it turns to madness and cautionary tale.For her unforgettable performance in Marguerite, Catherine Fort was awardedthe 2015 César (French Oscar) for best actress in a leading role.
Trailer:
Ma Vie de courgette / My Life as a Zucchini
Monday, March 19, 2:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Saturday, March 24, 11:00am, St Ann Catholic School, Charlotte
Saturday, March 24, 2:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, McKnight Hall, Cone Center
Claude Barras,France, Switzerland, 2016 / 68 min.
French with English subtitles
Presented as part ofThe Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’ImageAnimée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
Additional sponsors are theAlliance Française de Charlotteand theUNC Charlotte French Club.
Introduction byJane Houston, Instructor of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.
Though bravely realistic, Swiss director Claude Barras’s charming stopmotionanimated film is an unexpectedly uplifting look at childhood tragedy.After his alcoholic mother’s death, nine-year-old Icare—known to his friendsas Zucchini—is placed in a group home where he soon forms alliances andrivalries with a group of kids in equally difficult circumstances, including theson of drug addicts and the daughter of a deported refugee. But it takes thearrival of the recently orphaned Camille for Zuchini to know he has found afriend for life. Which means that when Camille’s nasty aunt appears to takeher away, the kids band together to find a way to keep her at the home. ThoughBarras and screenwriter Céline Sciamma (a powerhouse of contemporaryFrench cinema as the writer/director of international hit Girlhood) never pullpunches in describing the challenges faced by their characters, My Life as aZucchini is imbued with a real-life sense of childhood wonder, both through its
inventive animation and its commitment to exclusively telling the story fromthe children’s perspective. The result is a marvelously nuanced, finely crafteddepiction of childhood, as appealing to young people as adults. Following atriumphant premiere at the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival,My Life as a Zucchini wooed general audiences in France with its idiosyncraticstyle and bold treatment of its subject. It was nominated for a 2017Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Trailer:
Quand on a 17 ans/ Being 17
Tuesday, March 20, 6:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
André Téchiné, France, 2016 / 116 min.
French with English subtitles
Presented as part ofThe Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’ImageAnimée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
Additional sponsors are theAlliance Française de Charlotteand theUNC Charlotte French Club.
Introduction byMary LaMarca, Lecturer of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.
With Being 17, the great French writer-director André Téchiné returns tothe subject matter of his masterpiece Wild Reeds, a 1994 feature about thesexual awakening of a handful of teenagers in the rural southwest of Franceduring the Algerian war, and a landmark in the representation of gay youth inFrench cinema. In this new film, the time is the present and the setting themajestic landscape of the Pyrenees. Seventeen-year-old Damien lives alonewith his mother, a doctor, while his father is deployed overseas with the Frencharmy. At school, he is a good student but an outsider. He is frequently bulliedby Thomas, a biracial boy who must commute several hours a day from hisadoptive family’s remote farm high in the mountains. When Damien’s mothermeets Thomas through an emergency house-call to his mother, she discoversthe hardships the boy must face to go to school and eventually invites him tomove in with her family to be close to the classroom. The relationship betweenDamien and Thomas only gets worse and the two boys soon come to blows.Yet as both their families face major upheavals, Damien realizes he is in lovewith Thomas. With Being 17, Téchiné has made his best film in years, returningto his winning mix of subtly observed naturalism and narrative developmentsworthy of the great melodramas to give us another memorable depiction ofthe trials and triumphs of coming of age and coming out.
Trailer:
Au hasard Balthazar
Wednesday, March 21, 1:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Robert Bresson, France, 1966 / 95 min.
French with English subtitles
Presented as part ofThe Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’ImageAnimée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
Additional sponsors are theAlliance Française de Charlotteand theUNC Charlotte French Club.
Introduction byWilliam Davis, Instructor of Film Studies, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.
Voted one of the twenty greatest films of all time in the latest Sight & Soundpoll of 846 international film critics and scholars, Au Hasard Balthazar isnot only a masterpiece, but a film that stands apart for its way of invitinginterpretation while resisting it and for recording material reality with a hard,unflinching eye that nonetheless constantly evokes the sublime. It is alsothat rare film that places an animal at its center—the donkey Balthazar—without endowing it with human traits: by remaining an animal, the character
of Balthazar magnifies the humanity of the people he encounters—for betterand, most often, for worse. Balthazar’s story begins when he is taken from hismother to be a plaything for some children in the French countryside. Over thecourse of his life, he will be the companion to Marie, a haunted, passive young
woman, the victim of a small-time thug who desires her, a beast of burden fora homeless drunk, a circus animal, and the property of a heartless miser. AsBalthazar passes from one owner to the next, from one vice to another, alwaysa humble witness, director Robert Bresson paints a picture of cruelty andinnocence that many have seen as a Christian allegory. Is Balthazar’s life thelife of a saint? Bresson leaves the viewer to answer, speaking first to the heartand forever after to the restless mind.
Trailer:
Fatima
Monday, March 26, 5:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, Student Union Theater,studentunion.uncc.edu
Philippe Faucon, France, 2016 / 79 min.
French and Arabic with English subtitles
Presented as part ofThe Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’ImageAnimée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
Additional sponsors are theAlliance Française de Charlotteand theUNC Charlotte French Club.
Introduction byMichèleBissière, Professor of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.
Writer-director Philippe Faucon’s long-running project of making filmsabout those members of the French population traditionally left off-screenreaches a state of grace in Fatima, perfectly balancing sharp observationof the harsh realities of the immigrant experience with an inspiring story ofindividual resilience. Fatima is a middle-aged, divorced Algerian woman livingin a French suburb, cleaning houses and offices from dawn to dusk to provideher spirited teenage daughters with a better future. It takes a workplace
accident for Fatima to finally pay attention to her own needs and discover apowerful means of expressing them through poetry. Working with tremendouseconomy, Faucon brings the eye of an anthropologist and the feeling of atrue artist to a story that touches on a variety of essential issues: everydayracism, illiteracy, the challenges of the French university system, and theclash between traditional, older immigrant generations and their assimilatingchildren. Loosely based on a true story and featuring a superbly crafted, stoicperformance by real-life cleaning lady Soria Zeroual, Fatima was awarded theFrench film industry’s two highest distinctions for 2015, the Prix Louis Dellucand the César for best film of the year.
Trailer:
La Mort de Louis XIV/ The Death of Louis XIV
Thursday, March 29, 5:00pm, UNC Charlotte main campus, McKnight Hall, Cone Center,
Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain, 2016 / 115 min.
French with English subtitles
Presented as part ofThe Tournées Festival, made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’ImageAnimée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
Additional sponsors are theAlliance Française de Charlotteand theUNC Charlotte French Club.
Introduction byAllison Stedman, Associate Professor of French, UNC Charlotte. Discussion will follow screening.
After rising to the top of the festival circuit with astonishing retellings of DonQuixote, the Nativity, and the life of Casanova, the unpredictable Catalanauteur Albert Serra takes on two icons at once: the Sun King and the celebratedFrench actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. By offering the role of Louis XIV to the manwho played Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows and its sequels, as well as starringin epochal modernist films by Godard and Pasolini, Serra has given film loversthe opportunity to once more marvel at the unmatched talent of a performerwhose every gesture and intonation seems a work of poetry. Playing Louis XIVin the last days of his life, surrounded by his obsequious courtiers and—in onehilarious scene—his beloved greyhounds, Léaud reaches new heights, usinghis aura as a legend of cinema to cast the long shadow of a fading Sun King.
Serra’s trademark philosophical wit is put to good use in this warts-and-alldepiction of the frailty of a feared monarch, as is his marvelous command ofchiaroscuro lighting. Inspired by the memoirs of the duc de Saint-Simon, TheDeath of Louis XIV feels as rigorously accurate as it is profoundly imaginative.
Trailer: