Please check back for the 2010 listing of French films.
The department of modern languages is pleased to present the 2009 French Film Festival, which will be shown on four consecutive Wednesday evenings at 7:00 pm in the Frances Niederer Auditorium of the Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center. All films are in French provided with English subtitles and are open to the public at no charge. This year's festival features four films by acclaimed director Patrice Leconte. Of Leconte, Ryan Mottesheard of IndieWIRE wrote: "you could even argue that no other foreign filmmaker (INCLUDING Pedro Almodovar) has had as strong of an impact on U.S. arthouses."
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
In a provincial French apartment block, Monsieur Hire (Michel Blanc) endures a solitary life of dulling work as a tailor and vitriolic scorn from his neighbors. Hire's only solace is an occasional night out bowling and the voyeuristic admiration of his neighbor, the ravishingly erotic Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire), a beautiful, free-spirited woman conducting a heated love affair through un-drawn curtains across the way. But when police discover the nude body of another young woman in a nearby vacant lot, Hire becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation that brings him face to face with the object of his desire even as it threatens to ensnare them both in a web of deceit, accusation, lust, and guilt. (79 minutes, 1989)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Daniel Auteuil and sexy Vanessa Paradis charm in this funny and intriguing twist on Boy Meets Girl. A beautiful waif (Paradis) is prepared to leap to her death in the Seine but is rescued from her grim fate by a raffish carnival knife thrower (Auteuil, in a performance that won him a Cesar Award for Best Actor). Lovely, quirky, winsome and erotic this fairytale vision from director Patrice Leconte is a romance so captivating you won't want it to end! (108 minutes, 1999)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
In the French colony of Saint-Pierre during the middle of the nineteenth century, a captain of the guard (Auteuil) and his high-minded wife (Juliette Binoche) adopt as their protégé a man who has committed a meaningless murder (Emir Kusturica). The murderer is a sweetheart-a gentle and educable fellow. As the community awaits the arrival of a guillotine ("la veuve") and an executioner, the captain and his wife refuse to bow to the logic of capital punishment or to administrative bloody-mindedness. (112 minutes, 2000)
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Catherine (Gayet), refuses to believe that her business partner, the unlikeable François (Auteuil), has a best friend, so she challenges him to set up an introduction. Scrambling to find someone willing to pose as his best pal, François enlists the services of a charming taxi driver (Boon) to play the part. (95 minutes, 2006)