UWM French Film Festival
human
Below is the schedule and the descriptions of the films at this years
fabulous
***10th Annual*** Festival of Films in French at UWM.
Note: Fliers for the festival are now available and this schedule is also
online at:
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/French_Film_Festival/
We look forward to seeing you there!
UWM Union Theatre presents:
The 10th Annual Festival of Films in French
In memory of Dr. Sheldon Stone
February 9-18, 2007
All films are in French w/English Subtitles.
This program is made possible with the support of UWM Union Programming,
the Center for International Education, the Department of French, Italian,
and Comparative Literature, the Department of Film, the L.G.B.T. Film
Festival, the Southeast Wisconsin Academic Alliance in French, the
Alliance Franaise of Milwaukee, the Qubec Delegation in Chicago, the
Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Professor Martine Meyer and Dr.
Richard Stone.
Friday, February 9 7pm - Free screenings
Saturday, February 10 9:30pm
Sunday, February 11 7pm
C.R.A.Z.Y. *Milwaukee Premiere
(Jean-Marc Valle, Qubec, Canada, 35 mm, 127 min., 2005)
The title is an acronym for the names of five brothers: Christian,
Raymond, Antoine, Zachary and Yvan. The focus, however, is on Zac, whose
homosexuality causes friction between him and his father in
strictly-Catholic Qubec of the sixties and seventies. The next 20 years
takes Zac on an unexpected journey that ultimately leads him to accept his
true nature. The winner of multiple international awards, C.R.A.Z.Y.
exudes the beauty and the madness of the human spirit.
Friday, February 9 9:30pm - Free screenings
Saturday, February 10 5pm
Le Got des jeunes filles (On the Verge of a Fever)
*Milwaukee Premiere
(John LEcuyer, Qubec, Canada, 35mm, 88 min., 2004)
Against the backdrop of poverty, fear and brutal dictatorship in 1970s
Haiti, this film follows 15-year-old Fanfan who wishes to break away from
his sheltered home and experience life for himself. When a series of
bizarre circumstances forces him to hide out at his neighbors house for a
weekend, Fanfan is trapped between his fear of being caught and his desire
to fulfill his fantasies. Based on the autobiographical novel by
celebrated Haiti-Qubec writer Dany Laferrire.
Saturday, February 10 7pm
Sunday, February 11 5pm
Familia
Filmmaker Louise Archambault and actor Macha Grenon (on Saturday and
Sunday) in person!
(Louise Archambault, Qubec, Canada, 102 min., 2005)
Winner Best First Canadian Feature 2005 Toronto International Film
Festival
In her debut feature length film, Louise Archambault, follows the story of
two newly reunited childhood friends: Michle, who uproots her daughter and
takes her across the country in hopes of escaping gambling debts, and
Janine, who cant control her wandering husband, yet attempts to control
every aspect of her daughters life. An engaging tale of two daughters
bonding through their shared desire to become nothing like their mothers,
and two middle-aged mothers re-inventing themselves.
Sunday, February 11 3pm - Free screening
Le Ballon dor (The Golden Ball)
*Milwaukee Premiere
(Cheik Doukour, France/Guine, 90 min., 1994)
A wonderful film that follows a young boy, Bandian, as he struggles to
fulfill his dream of being a soccer star. In their poor, rural village in
Guinea, Bandian and his friends kick around a make-shift ball of knotted
rags. The village witchdoctor tells everyone that the gods chose Bandian
to fulfill a special role. When he is forced to flee to the big city,
Bandian is helped along the way by a slew of fairy-god-mother-like
characters to reach his goal of winning his own Ballon dor!
Silent Film Evening
Monday, February 12 7pm - Free screenings
Live musical accompaniment by Renato Umali!
Paris is Sleeping (Paris qui dort aka The Crazy Ray)
*Milwaukee Premiere
(Ren Clair, France, 60 min., 16mm, 1923)
In this first, witty and delightfully dada film of Ren Clair, an eccentric
scientist, an incarnation of the filmmaker himself, freezes the population
of Paris with a mechanical ray. The night watchman of the Eiffel Tower
sets out with his companions to explore the city streets below, whose
movement, speed and meaning are submitted to the arbitrary and
extraordinarily liberating capacities of the new, wholly modern art of
cinema.
Mnilmontant *Milwaukee Premiere
(Dimitry Kirsanov, France, 37 min., 16mm, 1925)
A little known masterpiece of 1920s French Impressionist cinema by Russian
migr director Dmitry Kirsanov, featuring a stunning performance by his
wife Nadia Sibirskaia, Mnilmontant tells the story of two orphaned
sisters, who confront the violence of modern life in the dilapidated
milieu of Paris 20th arrondissement. Its audacious combination of realist
techniques such as on-location shooting, hand-held camera, symbolist
camera effects, and the alternation of lyrical close-ups with raw
soviet-style montage sequences, foreshadowing those made famous by
Eisenstein, make it pure visual poetry.
Experimental Tuesday
Tuesday, February 13 7pm - Free screening
Schuss! *Milwaukee Premiere
(Nicolas Rey, France, 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 123 min., 2005)
A film that starts like an odd documentary on ski resorts suddenly
declares its subject to be aluminum. And its all downhill from there,
evoking in chapters the history of capitalism in the 20th century, the
death of the God Progress in the valleys of the Alps and the question of
the relationship between State and Industry. Alls fair in love and snow.
Comedy Classics, 1931-2001
Wednesday, February 14 7pm - Free screenings
Saturday, February 17 2pm
La Grande Vadrouille (Dont Look Now, Were Being Shot At) *Milwaukee
Premiere
(Grard Oury, France, 35mm., 122 min., 1966)
Grard Oury directed three stars of European filmed comedy, Louis de Funs,
Bourvil, and Terry-Thomas, in this story about Allied parachutists who are
forced to land in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943. They attempt to stay in
hiding with the antic conductor of the Paris Opera and a bumbling house
painter. Set in a dark period of French history, this hilarious farce was
the biggest box-office success in France for thirty years and has been
screened all over the world, but rarely in the U.S.
Thursday, February 15 7pm - Free screenings
Sunday, February 18 3pm
Le Million *Milwaukee Premiere
(Ren Clair, France, 83 min., 1931)
Ren Clairs second sound film is an effervescent comedy musical about a
pair of penniless artists who discover they have won the lottery but left
the ticket in the pocket of a coat given away to a beggar! Their mad
search leads them on a merry chase over the roofs of Paris, through the
urban underworld, and onto the very stage of the Opera. A sparkling
digital restoration of a masterpiece that influenced the Marx Brothers,
Chaplin and the American musical as a whole.
Thursday, February 15 9pm - Free screening - One screening only!
Tanguy *Milwaukee Premiere
(tienne Chatiliez, France, 35mm., 108min., 2001)
What do you do when your 28-year-old slob/slacker son wont leave the nest?
In the case of these exasperated parents (Sabine Azma and Andr Dussollier
in top form), anything short of outright murder. Sonny-boys Zen-inspired
equanimity, as he writes his doctoral dissertation on Chinese philosophy,
seems impervious to even the most extreme measures. Director Chatiliez
(Tatie Danielle, Life is a long, Quiet River) once again demonstrates his
flair for caustic portraits of family dysfunction in this intelligent and
extremely witty social comedy.
Friday, February 16 7pm
Saturday, February 17 9pm
Quand la mer monte (When the Sea Rises)
*Milwaukee Premiere
(Yolande Moreau and Gilles Portes, Belgium/France, 90 min., 2004)
Winner Best Actress & Best First Film 2005 Csar Award
A first film written and directed by Yolande Moreau and Gilles Portes.
Yolande Moreau plays Irene, a comedian who travels along the
Belgian-French border performing her one-woman show to audiences in school
auditoriums and retirement homes. Feeling somewhat lost and lonely for her
family, she finds friendship in Dries played by Gilles Portes, a timid yet
charming float designer, who follows her from town to town. Approaches the
eloquence of Fellinis Strada. - Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES.
Friday, February 16 9pm - Free Screenings
Sunday, February 18 7pm
La Petite Jerusalem (Little Jerusalem) *Milwaukee Premiere
(Karin Albou, France, 35mm., 96 min., 2004)
La Petite Jerusalem is the nickname of a low-income housing neighborhood
near Paris, where a Jewish family shares an apartment. Strong-willed Laura
falls in love with Djamel, an Algerian-Muslim immigrant, while her
orthodox sister Mathilde struggles in her marriage. Winner of the 2005
SACD screenwriting award at Cannes, Karin Albous first feature film raises
questions of religious interpretation, freedom, sexuality and family
relationships in her depiction of the lives of these two women. Proceeded
by Viviane Vaghs short film Petite 2.
Friday, February 16-Sunday, February 18
Petite (2, 3, 4) *Milwaukee Premiere
(Viviane Vagh, France, 15min., 2005)
Sometimes we tell ourselves that life will become simpler with age, or
that as children we knew only innocence. In her short film series Petite,
Franco-Australian artist Viviane Vagh overwhelms these comfortable
barriers, like the feeling that comes when re-opening ones old diary. Her
poetry is written in the language of the cinema: the moving image, which
draws up feeling from memories of place and of self. At the center of
Petite lives a woman between daughter and grandmother, between anglophone
and francophone cultures, between the sanctuary of home and the intricate
web of a modern city, Paris.
Petit 2 screens before La Petite Jerusalem, Petite 3 screens before Le
Chignon dOlga, Petite 4 screens before La Femme de Gilles.
Saturday, February 17 5pm - Free Screenings
Sunday, February 18 3pm
Le Chignon dOlga (Olgas Chignon) *Milwaukee Premiere
(Jrme Bonnell, Belgium/France, 96min., 2002)
Winner FIPRESCI Prize 2003 Chicago International Film Festival
Set in a small town in the Beauce region, Julien, falls in love with a
young saleswoman Olga whom he spots in a bookstore, but he and his
childhood friend Alice gradually discover that they have deep feelings for
each other. In his first feature film, Jrme Bonnell creates his own
universe, fresh and full of tenderness. Proceeded by Viviane Vaghs short
film Petite 3.
Saturday, February 17 7pm
Sunday, February 18 5pm
La Femme de Gilles (Gilles Wife) *Milwaukee Premiere
(Frdric Fonteyne, Belgium/France, 35mm., 103 min., 2004).
Winner Best Actress Mar del Plata Film FestivalWinner Golden Tulip
2005 Istanbul International Film Festival
A novel by Madeleine Bourdouxhe is transformed into the compelling story
of a woman, stunningly performed by Emmanuelle Devos, who at times feels
like nothing more than Gilles wife. Set in 1930s in a small mining town of
northern France, this silent and devoted wife struggles with the
realization that her husband is sleeping with her own sister. The
emotional intensity is carried by the facial expressions and superb
cinematography. Proceeded by Viviane Vaghs short film Petite 4.
Talkbacks following certain screenings.
UWM Union Theatre
2200 E. Kenwood Blvd., 2nd Level, UWM Union
(414) 229-4070 or (414) 229-4825 www.uniontheatre.uwm.
"History tells us that how much we want to believe a proposition is
not a reliable guide as to whether it is true." -- Steven Pinker