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Introduction
I am delighted to be able to welcome you to the 2007
French Film Festival which is sponsored once again by
our generous partners Carte Noire.
This is a particularly proud moment for me as the new
festival director to be able to say that the films in this
year’s festival represent why French cinema is still
dearly loved at home, in Ireland, and around the
world. While the programme has several new films
from veteran directors like Jacques Rivette, Manoel de
Oliveira, Luc Moullet, Claude Berri and Nicolas Klotz, it
is also very much a year of discovery of new young
talent, new landscapes and new stories.
Among the festival highlights are our opening film
Persepolis. Since it won the Prix du Jury at Cannes, this
animated film has been a runaway box office success
in France and has recently been selected to represent
France at the Academy Awards.
We are also thrilled to have the documentary filmmaker
Nicolas Philibert, the man behind Etre et avoir, joining us
for a retrospective of his work. And as the purpose of
the Festival is also about celebrating French film
heritage, we have asked the Irish music ensemble
3pekano to bring their new score for Cocteau’s Blood of
a Poet to the IFI for a special screening.
I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome
His Excellency Yvon Roé D’Albert, the new Ambassador
of France to Ireland. This Festival will be a wonderful
opportunity for him to see how much the Irish love
French films.
I hope you, the audience will enjoy the films as much
as I have.
Alice Black, Festival Director
SPONSORS
Many thanks to our sponsors. Please support them whenever you have the opportunity.
Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
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The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR FRENCH CLASSES, LEARN FRENCH WITH THE EXPERTS,
General French for all ages and levels
(groups & one to one tuition)
French Conversation
Specialised French (Business, Translation,
Diploma in Legal French)
Diplomas and Certificate Courses
French Workshops
French for Secondary School Students
Courses for Children
Courses for Bilingual Children
Tuition in Primary Schools
Corporate Training (on company premises)
Screening Schedule
TUESDAY
13th November
OPENING FILM
9.00
Persepolis
[Tickets include Opening reception at 8pm]
WEDNESDAY
14th November
8:45
Anna M.
THURSDAY
15th November
4:00
8:45
Philibert: Le pays des sourds [Land of the Deaf]
Les chansons d'amour [Love Songs]
FRIDAY
16th November
1.30
5.10
7.00
8.45
Philibert: La moindre des choses [Every Little Thing]
La France
Substitute
Naissance des pieuvres [Water Lilies]
SATURDAY
17th November
12:00
2:00
3.15
6:15
8:45
Philibert: Être et avoir
Nicolas Philibert Masterclass [Meeting Room]
Moi, Pierre Rivière…
Philibert: Retour en Normandie [Back to Normandy]
Ensemble, c'est tout [Hunting and Gathering]
SUNDAY
18th November
1:00
2:15
4:30
6:30
8:45
Le sang d’un poète [Blood of a Poet]
Belle toujours
Tout est pardonné [All Is Forgiven]
Ce que je sais de Lola
Flight of the Red Balloon
MONDAY
19th November
2:30
4:30
7.00
9.00
Philibert: La Ville Louvre
Le prestige de la mort
J'aurais voulu être danseur [Gone For A Dance]
Un homme perdu
TUESDAY
20th November
1.30
5.00
7.00
8.30
Philibert: Un animal, des animaux
Boxes
Belle toujours
La question humaine [Heartbeat Detector]
WEDNESDAY
21st November
6:00
8:00
Nos retrouvailles [In Your Wake]
Ne touchez pas la hache [Don't Touch The Axe]
THURSDAY
22nd November
2:00
6:30
8:30
Dans les cordes
Pas douce
Un secret
{Library & Restaurant “Le café des amis”}
1 Kildare Street, D2 – Ph: 01 676 1732 www.alliance-francaise.ie // email: [email protected]
TICKETS
All tickets are €9, except the opening night film which is €15 and includes an Opening Night
reception beforehand at 8pm. Membership is required.
Tickets can be booked online at: www.ifibooking.ie or www.irishfilm.ie or on 01-6793477
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The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
3
Persepolis
Anna M.
Les chansons d’amour
Love Songs
OPENING FILM
Directors: Marjane Satrapi & Vincent
Paronnaud
Director: Michel Spinosa
Cast: Isabelle Carré, Gilbert Melki,
Anne Consigny
Director: Christophe Honoré
Cast: Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier,
Clotilde Hesme
Tuesday 13 November (9:00 pm)
Wednesday 14 November (8:45 pm)
Thursday 15 November (8:45 pm)
France, 2007, 95 mins, Black & White
France, 2007, 106 mins
France, 2007, 100 mins
A prize-winner at Cannes and a box
office smash at home, Persepolis has
just been chosen as France’s official
entry to this year’s Academy Awards.
It might not look like your average
French film, but this poignant comingof-age story is destined to become a
classic of French cinema.
The mesmerising Isabelle Carré plays
Anna M., a shy, depressed young
woman who, after a suicide attempt,
meets the handsome, but married,
Doctor Zanevsky and becomes convinced they are in love with each other.
As her delusional obsession takes
hold, her gestures of love become
increasingly extreme. She follows him,
steals his letters, sends him presents
and rings him at home, day and night.
Anna's hopes that Zanevsky will finally
acknowledge his love for her are not
fulfilled. At first she is disappointed at
his failure to surrender to his feelings,
but then her disappointment gradually
turns into hatred. The story takes on
the nail-biting suspense of a thriller as
we watch Anna's seemingly unstoppable determination to wreak havoc.
The mostly black and white, handdrawn animation is based on co-director Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical
graphic novels, which illustrated her
own experience growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Marjane is
a feisty little girl, clever and fearless,
who outsmarts the ‘social guardians’
and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron
Maiden. But when religious extremism
sweeps the country, her parents make
the painful decision to send the outspoken Marjane overseas.
The voice-casting is pitch-perfect and
features three generations of wonderful French actresses – real-life mother
and daughter Catherine Deneuve and
Chiara Mastroianni, and a beautiful
performance by Danielle Darrieux as
Marjane’s beloved grandmother.
Beautifully shot in a rich palette
inspired by the sumptuous hues of
Anna's favourite painting by baroque
artist Zurbarán, Anna M. is an extraordinary glimpse of the inner-world of a
love that transcends reality.
Eclectic Christophe Honoré’s latest film
is a charming and contemporary musical that owes as much to the great
Jacques Demy as it does to Jean-Luc
Godard. Les Chansons d’amour stars
Honoré regular Louis Garrel as Ismaël,
a journalist working on a small periodical, caught up in a ménage à trois with
his girlfriend Julie and a girl who works
at his office, Alice. It is a situation that
has arisen through convenience, but
works through the fun and light-heartedness of their youthful innocence.
Julie knows that it is too good to last
and when it does end – tragically –
Ismaël is the one who finds it difficult
to get himself back together.
What begins as a lighthearted sex
romp with songs turns into a story
about coming to terms with grief and
loss. Ismaël walks the streets of Paris,
has casual sexual encounters, and is
unable to shift the deep emptiness
that lies within him, until he meets
Erwann, a young man who may be able
to bring him back to life.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
5
PHILIBERT
Guest of Honour
> Outside France, Philibert is best-known for his award-winning documentary Être et avoir (To Be and to Have), an
account of a teacher’s year in a one-room schoolhouse in rural France. Minimalist and exceedingly moving, Être et
avoir was praised by critics and also achieved a rare feat in France: box office success.
La France
Substitute
Naissance des pieuvres
What sets Philibert’s work apart from other documentary filmmakers is his commitment to revealing the extraordinary
which exists within the ordinary. His approach is one of engagement through patient observation, capturing all the
little details which reveal what is interesting about each situation to the viewer. His fly-on-the-wall approach enables
him to gain incredible access to locations normally forbidden to strangers, and certainly to filmmakers. On set, his
patience allows him, and ultimately us, to watch actions unfold in a non-linear fashion - to see people reveal themselves in unpredictable, often astonishing, ways.
Water Lilies
Director: Serge Bozon
Cast: Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory,
Guillame Depardieu
Director: Fred Poulet
Cast: Vikash Dhorasoo
Friday 16 November (5:10 pm)
Friday 16 November (7:00 pm)
Friday 16 November (8:45 pm)
France, 2007, 102 mins
France, 2006, 96 mins
France, 2007, 85 mins
Autumn 1917. World War I. Miles from
the fighting, Camille’s life revolves
around the letters she receives from
her soldier husband. Her life is shattered when she receives a cryptic note
from him ending their relationship.
Distraught, she decides to disguise
herself as a man to go and find him.
She heads for the frontline cutting
across fields to avoid the gendarmes
and, in a forest, she comes across a
small group of lost soldiers who do not
suspect her true identity. She joins
them, and in time discovers the real
reason why the men have drifted off
course.
For those who were disappointed by
the impersonal tone of last year’s hit
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait,
Substitute is the perfect antidote.
A collaboration between video director
Fred Poulet and French midfielder
Vikash Dhorasoo, Substitute documents Dhorasoo’s 16 minutes on the
pitch in the 2006 World Cup tournament as well as the hours and hours of
frustration he endured when left on
the bench as the French team journeyed to the final.
Bozon shifts effortlessly between warweary soldiers trudging through the
forest to sweet musical numbers to
shocking, cold-blooded murders. Aptly
described by Variety as ‘Bresson
meets the Beatles’, this audacious
WWI drama is a stark portrait of fighting and friendship on the Western
front. Defying all sorts of conventions,
you’ll soon understand why La France
won the prestigious Prix Jean Vigo earlier this year.
With footage shot almost entirely by
Dhorasoo himself on Super 8,
Substitute captures his initial excitement at being part of the top team and
his growing frustration as he is left off
the team by coach Raymond
Domenech and sidelined by the rest of
the squad. Honest and poignant, this
film offers an insight into the world of
football we rarely see – instead of
WAGs and beautiful goals, the reality
of broken dreams and defeat.
Naissance des pieuvres caused a buzz
at this year’s Cannes Film Festival as its
director, 27-year old Céline Sciamma,
had never even directed a short before
turning the screenplay she wrote for
school into a feature film.
Marie is a petite 15-year-old girl from a
Parisian suburb who looks underdeveloped when compared to her classmates and the girls on the synchronised swimming team she is so eager
to join. Her best friend Anne is Marie’s
physical opposite and is gutsy in ways
Marie can only dream of. Anne and
Marie's relationship changes dramatically when Marie starts hanging out
with Floriane, the stunning blonde with
the model-like body who is the swim
team’s captain. Floriane decides to use
Marie as an excuse to sneak out for
lovemaking sessions with her current
boyfriend, forging, if not a friendship,
at least a sense of uneasy complicity.
Sciamma’s revealing and uncomfortable look into the world of teenage
girls has a raw edginess that led some
French critics to describe her as a
young Catherine Breillat.
Director Céline Sciamma will be present at this screening and will give a
Q&A afterwards.
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The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
FAS / SCREEN TRAINING IRELAND
presents
Director: Céline Sciamma
Cast: Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachére,
Adele Haenel
A Director’s Masterclass with
Nicolas Philibert
La Ville Louvre
Un animal, des animaux
Louvre City
Animals and More Animals
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Monday 19 November (1:30 pm)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Tuesday 20 November (1:30 pm)
France, 1990, 81 mins
France, 1996, 59 mins
What happens at the Louvre Museum
when it is closed to the public? During
the Grand Louvre’s extensive renovations, the museum opened its corridors to a film crew for the first time.
People are seen moving paintings and
reorganising rooms. Miles of underground corridors and galleries cross
each other. Little by little, the secret,
and sometimes comical, mundane,
sublime and fascinating world of one
of the most famous museums in the
world is revealed. A veritable city within a city opens its heart to us.
The zoological gallery of France’s
Natural History Museum was closed to
the public for over 25 years, leaving
thousands of stuffed animals forgotten
in the shadows. Shot during the
gallery’s renovations, the film documents its metamorphosis and the resurrection of its strange lodgers.
On Saturday 17th November (12:00
pm) following the screening of Être et
Avoir, the Masterclass will commence
at 2:00 pm. It will focus on the skills
and aesthetics of film directing in the
Documentary genre, illustrated by
clips from Philibert’s work. Covering
Philibert’s own unique style and pioneering methods, it will cover his
approach to protagonists, sound
design, approach to camera work, as
well as his considerable work as an
editor. It will cover authorship /ownership of ‘the story’ and responsibility (ie
the director’s influence on the story),
issues of trust and relationships during and following the making of a film,
and the need for access, and legal
implications. Donald Taylor Black, from
the National Film School in Dun
Laoghaire will chair the Masterclass.
Philibert’s latest film, Back to
Normandy, will screen at 6:30pm. All
participants will be welcome to attend.
Masterclass fee €50, includes
admission to Être et avoir.
Meeting Room, Irish Film Institute
17th November, 2007
*Note: There will be an onstage public
interview with Nicolas Philibert following the screening of his new film
Retour en Normandie.
All applications must me made online
at www.screentrainingireland.ie.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
15
Special Presentation
NICOLAS
Nicolas Philibert is one of Europe’s most celebrated and well-loved documentary filmmakers. Born in Nancy, France, in
1951, Philibert studied philosophy before becoming an assistant director working with such notable directors as René
Allio, Alain Tanner, Claude Goretta and Joris Ivens.
Philibert’s first documentary feature La Ville Louvre (1990), is a fascinating portrait of the famous museum’s nocturnal
activities. Philibert quickly established a reputation for approaching his subjects with honesty and tenderness with his
next film Les Pays Des Sourds (1993), a study of the world through the eyes of the deaf. In 1995, the French director
returned to the subject of museums, deepening the human factor with humor. Un Animal, Des Animaux, explores the
zoological wing of France's Museum of Natural History, which had been closed for years, and brings to light its unusual treasures. La moindre des choses (1997) follows the rehearsals for a summer play in one of France’s most highly
regarded mental institutions. >
Moi, pierre rivière...
Ensemble, ç’est tout
Le sang d’un poète
Hunting and Gathering
Blood of A Poet
WITH LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT
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Le Pays des sourds
La Moindre des choses
Être et avoir
The Land of the Deaf
Every Little Thing
To Be And To Have
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Thursday 15 November (4:00 pm)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Friday 16 November (1:30 pm)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Saturday 17 November (12:00 pm)
France, 1992, 99 mins
France, 1996, 105 mins
France, 2002, 104 mins, Colour
“I wanted to give a ‘voice,’ if I may use
the term, to people whom we usually
see only through the prism of their disability. I wanted to show that we can
approach them in other ways.” Nicolas
Philibert enters the world of deafmutes and, with dignity and simplicity,
shows us the strength and diversity of
the community. What is the world like
to the thousands of people who live in
silence? Jean-Claude, Abou, Claire,
Florent and the other characters were
either born deaf or became deaf in the
first few months of their lives. With
them, we set out to discover a land
where vision and touch take on
increased importance.
During the summer of 1995, true to
what has now become a tradition, residents and staff at the La Borde psychiatric clinic get together to put on the
play that they will perform on 15
August. During rehearsals, the film
retraces the ups and downs of this
adventure. But over and above the theatre, it describes life at La Borde,
everyday life, time passing, trivial
goings-on, loneliness and tiredness,
as well as the moments of merriment,
laughter, and wit peculiar to certain
residents, and the close attention
which people pay to one another...
Être et avoir unfolds during four distinct seasons in one of France's few
remaining one-room schoolhouses, in
rural St.-Etienne-sur-Osson, population
200. The teacher, the charismatic
Georges Lopez, presides over 13 students, ages 3 to 15, who are separated
by age into three groups that work at
three separate large tables. Lopez has
lived above the school for the past 21
years and is set to retire. He is at the
centre of the film, acting a teacher /
friend / father / confessor to the children, each of whom is filmed in his or
her budding individuality.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
Director: René Allio
Director: Claude Berri
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Guillaume Canet,
Laurent Stocker
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Enrique Rivero, Lee Miller,
Pauline Carton
Saturday 17 November (3:15 pm)
Saturday 17 November (8:45pm)
Sunday 18 November (1:00pm)
France, 1975, 130 mins
France, 2007, 95 mins
France, 1930, 55 mins
Based on documents compiled by
Michel Foucault, this film is a uniquely
original meditation on a gruesome
19th century crime. The story happens
in a Normandy village in 1835, as a
very young man, Rivière, murders his
mother, sister and brother before running away to the countryside. The written confession of Rivière himself is one
of the voiceovers. Rivière was convinced that his mother was weakening
and humiliating his father - and his
words on this subject are deeply disturbing.
Claude Berri's newest film is a bittersweet exploration of loneliness, ageing
and finding love.
The cast, mostly villagers found in the
places where the events had taken
place 150 years before, creates an
interesting atmosphere of hyper-realism.
René Allio accomplishes the unique
feat of producing an (almost) ethnographic document, an historical film,
and an inquiry into a psychopathological case.
Scrawny Camille has a talent for drawing, but works as a cleaner and lives in
a Parisian attic. One night, she meets a
fellow tenant, courtly and erudite
Philibert, who has a stutter and an
aristocratic surname a mile long.
Philibert lives in a vast bourgeois
apartment that could be sold by his
late grandmother's estate at any
moment. His roommate Franck works
long hours as a cook six days a week.
He drinks, smokes and beds brainless
babes, but is antsy and dissatisfied.
Franck loves his grandmother Paulette
(Alain Resnais’ regular Françoise
Bertin), who raised him, but resents
having to spend precious days off visiting her after she breaks her leg.
Then circumstances force all four of
them to live under the one roof for a
year, and to learn each other’s ways.
The cast are pitch-perfect in this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Anna
Galvada, which veteran director Berri
has infused with a light touch.
A silent film set to a new score performed live by a seven-piece ensenmble, this is a real treat for Cocteau
fans.
Jean Cocteau made his first foray into
cinema with the haunting collage-like
film Le Sang d’un Poète. Financed by
the philanthropic Vicomte de Noailles,
it shimmers with energy and invention,
inaugurating a style that Cocteau
would rework in each of his future
films. Borrowing the sexual undertones and dreamlike structure of his
plays, novels and paintings, Cocteau
presents a sequence of seemingly
unrelated events, all depicting the
philosophical and metaphysical struggles of the artist.
3epkano, the Dublin-based collective,
blend electronic and acoustic instruments to create contemporary scores
to classic silent films. Creating music
for 3epkano is a process of patient
exploration and tentative discovery.
The result is a compelling and unique
cinematic experience.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
7
Dans les cordes
Pas douce
Un secret
In the ring
Parting Shot
CLOSING FILM
Le voyage du ballon
rouge
Le prestige de la mort
Director: Magaly Richard-Serrano
Cast: Richard Anconina, Maria de
Medeiros, Louise Szpindel, Stéphanie
Sokolinski
Thursday 22 November (2:00pm)
Director: Jeanne Waltz
Cast: Isild Le Besco, Lio, Steven de
Almeida
Director: Claude Miller
Cast: Cécile de France, Patrick Bruel,
Ludivine Sagnier
Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Song Fang,
Simon Iteanu
Director: Luc Moullet
Cast: Luc Moullet, Bernadette Lafont,
Christine Vézinet
Director: Alain Berliner
Cast: Vincent Elbaz, Jean-Pierre Cassel,
Cécile de France, Jeanne Balibar
Thursday 22 November (6:30 pm)
Thursday 22 November (8:30 pm)
Sunday 18 November (8:45 pm)
Monday 19 November (4:30 pm)
Monday 19 November (7:00 pm)
France, 2007, 93 mins
France, 2007, 84 mins
France, 2007, 105 mins
France, 2007, 113 mins
France, 2006, 75 mins
Belgium/Luxembourg, 2007, 106 mins
French comedy director extraordinaire
Luc Moullet is not as well known outside France as he should be. In his
most recent outing, Moullet directs
and stars as himself in an odd but
hilarious new comedy. The premise
has Moullet (in a depreciative self-caricature) as an over-the-hill director who
has hit upon a new scheme to restore
public interest in his own work: he
fakes his own death (delayed, within
the story, by the passing of Jean-Luc
Godard), then assumes the identity of
an oddball drifter whose body he finds
in the desert during a location-scouting trip. He is convinced that the royalties will pour in from the use of his film
clips in television. No points for guessing that the ploy works – but how will
Moullet contend with his new persona,
or continue his film career, without
raising the suspicions of nearly everyone?
François Maréchal seems set – he is
happily married with a beautiful young
wife (Cécile de France), father to a son
he adores, and he has just been promoted in his job as general manager of
a DVD rental shop. All is going to plan
until one day when he sees Singing in
the Rain, and becomes obsessed with
the idea of becoming a tap dancer.
Turning his back on his happy home
life, he starts to ignore his wife, his
work and everything in favour of his
passion. Even though he really isn’t
very good at tap dancing, he perseveres, and eventually is hired in a
small run-down joint in the suburbs
where he comes face to face with his
past and the father he thought was
dead. Turns out the apple didn’t fall far
from the tree.
Death’s Glamour
Flight of the Red Balloon
Joseph manages a boxing club in a
small suburban city while, at the same
time, training his daughter and niece
for the French championships. Boxing
is everything for this threesome, their
lives consumed by their passion for
the sport – a passion that Theresa,
Joseph's wife, ends up detesting. The
defeat of one of the two girls throws
the survival of the club into peril and
shatters the family's equilibrium.
Between the two young women, Angie
and Sandra, raised as if sisters, a dangerous rivalry begins to fester, both
inside and outside of the ring.
Director Richard-Serrano drew on her
own personal experiences to make
Dans les cordes. Her grandfather was a
boxer who ran a boxing club, her mother was one of the first female boxers in
France and Richard-Serrano herself
has twice been crowned the French
women’s boxing champion. Shot in her
hometown of Vitry-sur-Seine, Dans les
cordes captures with warmth and honesty the struggle of a working-class
family for whom boxing is everything.
12
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
The French title of this tale of anger,
guilt and redemption translates literally as ‘not sweet’, and it refers to the
film’s main character, a young woman
named Fred. Played by the wonderful
French actress Isild Le Besco, Fred
appears at first as a solemn, delicate
person with a gentle voice. But underneath that soft exterior is a defiant and
self-destructive rage that earns her the
tart nickname.
Fred works as a nurse at a hospital in a
small mountain town on the FrancoSwiss border; her boyfriend has broken up with her, and she no longer
speaks to her father. She also has a
rifle, and she’s an expert shot. She
takes her rifle into the woods with the
intention of killing herself, but is distracted by two teenagers engaged in a
tussle. In the heat of her own selfdestructive turmoil, she impulsively
turns the barrel on one of the boys. In
a split second, an act of violence
becomes an act of discovery that
changes her life, and the boy’s, forever.
Claude Miller's extraordinary new film
Un secret traces the life of a Jewish
family during and after the Second
World War. Adapted from Phillipe
Grimbert's autobiographical novel,
this film is one of Miller's finest works
in years.
An exploration of dark secrets and
passion, the story centres on François,
who is trying to come to terms with
conflicting memories from his childhood. An only son, he was always
haunted by a sense that he had a
phantom brother. Now an adult, he
embarks on a search for answers.
What he uncovers is a painful history
of a family struggling to survive during
the Occupation, forced to decide
between declaring and concealing
their Jewish identity. Using a complex,
seamless structure of flashbacks,
Miller has created a fresh and moving
exploration of this trouble period in
French history.
Cécile de France is luminous as the
glamorous mother and Julie Depardieu
excels as François' childhood confidante, the witness who finally breaks
the silence and reveals the family
secret.
The helium-filled icon of Albert
Lamorisse’s beloved Le ballon rouge
serves as the breathtaking inspiration
for Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first film set outside of Asia. Commissioned by the
Musée d'Orsay, the film’s focus is on
Suzanne (played by the wonderful
Juliette Binoche), a whirlwind of a
mother and artist. She works as a puppeteer – Chinese puppet theatre is a
running theme for Hou – and is devoted to her young son, Simon. But she is
self-obsessed, slightly manic and desperately in need of serious help
around the house. She hires Song, a
Taiwanese film student living in Paris,
to mind Simon.
Like Hou’s previous work, the film is
contemplative and breathtakingly
beautiful, offering picture postcard
glimpses of the French capital and all
its charms. But it is also a direct and
honest look at the life of a single parent, and at the intersection between
East and West, through the medium of
storytelling and cinema.
J'aurais voulu être un
danseur
Gone For A Dance
Moullet has said that he was inspired
by Cecil B. DeMille’s 1918 film The
Whispering Chorus and André
Berthomieu’s film Mort en fuite to create this wonderful mockumentary
which lies somewhere between biting
satire and farce.
Alain Berliner, director of the universally acclaimed Ma vie en rose, once
more intertwines poetry and reality in
a magical combination of beautiful settings and storytelling. This film also
features one of the last performances
of the legendary Jean-Pierre Cassel,
who gives a charming turn as a man
who devotes his life to dancing.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
9
Un homme perdu
Retour en Normandie
A Lost Man
Back To Normandy
Director: Danielle Arbid
Cast: Melvil Poupaud, Carol Abboud,
Alexander Siddig
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Monday 19 November (9:00pm)
France, 2007, 93 mins, Colour
Melvil Poupaud stars as Thomas Koré,
a French photographer who travels
around the world for his research
about extreme experiences. For him,
an experience does not exist unless it
is photographed, women are objects
to be used and discarded, and a mystery is not solved unless it is demystified.
During his travels, he crosses paths
with Fouad Saleh (played by BritishSudanese actor Alexander Siddig) a
solitary and amnesic man who disappeared from Beirut 17 years ago and
never returned. Intrigued, Koré sets
out to chronicle the history of this
man, and this journey into the heart of
a forbidden world changes both their
lives forever.
Danielle Arbid, the award-winning
director of Dans les champs de
bataille, was born in Lebanon and
began her career as a journalist. The
character of Koré is based on Antoine
d’Agata, a photographer, who served
as an advisor on the script.
La question humaine
Nos retrouvailles
Ne touchez pas la hache
Heartbeat Detector
In Your Wake
Don’t Touch The Axe
Director: Nicolas Klotz
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Michael
Lonsdale, Jean-Pierre Kalfon
Director: David Oelhoffen
Cast: Jacques Gamblin, Nicolas Giraud,
Jacques Spiesser
Director: Jacques Rivette
Cast: Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume
Depardieu, Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier
Saturday 17 November (6:15 pm)
Director: Jane Birkin
Cast: Jane Birkin, Michel Piccoli,
Géraldine Chaplin, John Hurt, Charlotte
Gainsbourg
Tuesday 20 November (5:00 pm)
Tuesday 20 November (8:30 pm)
Wednesday 21 November (6:00pm)
Wednesday 21 November (8:00pm)
France, 2007, 116 mins
France, 2007, 95 mins
France, 2007, 143 mins
France, 2007, 99 mins
France / Italy, 137, mins
In 1975, as a young man, Nicolas
Philibert worked as an assistant director on Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant
égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et mon
frère . . . , a film by René Allio. Based
on a true event that occurred in
Normandy in 1835, the film told the
tale of a 20-year-old peasant who slit
the throats of several members of his
family with a billhook. Most of the
roles were played by farmers in the
region. Thirty years later, Philibert
decided to find these people again, to
remember the adventure they shared
so many years before, but also to film
them in their present lives.
Jane Birkin, best known as an actress
and pop icon of the 60s, can now add
director to her list of accomplishments. Boxes, her first feature film, is
a bittersweet chronicle of a woman in
the midst of a crisis. Birkin plays Anna,
who has just moved into a new house
in Brittany, full of packing cartons,
each of which is a Pandora's box of
memories. At a stage in her life when
time is rushing forward at a dizzying
pace, Anna tries to draw breath, to
confront her past, visualise herself in
the future and, perhaps, believe in
love one more time.
Simon is the corporate psychologist
for the German firm FC Farb, a petrochemical company based in Paris. He
is well-respected for his work, selfassured, ambitious, and a trusted
member of staff. But when the assistant director presents him with the
challenge of assessing the mental
health of the firm’s director, he is
forced to confront some disturbing revelations about his methods and his
workplace. Simon's search heads
down an unexpected path, yielding
more and more questions about the
history of FC Farb, in particular the
company’s relationship with the Nazi
régime in the Second World War.
Marco (Nicolas Giraud) leads a solitary,
humdrum existence working in a canteen. From out of nowhere his
estranged father Gabriel stumbles
back into his life. Even though his sudden presence opens old wounds and
revives Marco’s resentment, he still
sees this return as a welcome breath
of fresh air in his otherwise desolate
and solitary world. Gabriel personifies
nightlife, partying, exuberance.
Looking for cash to open his own
nightclub, Gabriel proposes a plan to
rob a warehouse outside of Paris.
Fuelled by his desire to make up for
lost time, Marco gets caught up in
Gabriel’s dangerous scheme.
Working again with Elisabeth Perceval
(here adapting François Emmanuel's
book), Nicolas Klotz has cemented his
reputation as one of France’s most
provocative and politically engaged
filmmakers. The third in a loose trilogy,
preceded by Pariah and La blessure, La
question humaine is perhaps the most
haunting.
An award-winning short filmmaker
who also wrote the script, David
Oelhoffen has crafted a highly watchable psychological drama which focuses as much on the father and son relationship as it does on the heist the two
are preparing. The cinematography
and performances by the excellent cast
are restrained and so finely tuned that
the tension around the crisis point is
palpable.
Using his trademark style, Philibert
unobtrusively uses the premise of
revisiting the making of Moi, Pierre
Riviere . . . into an exploration of collective memory, rural community life
and, of course, cinema. With great
patience and care, he allows his subjects to reveal their intimate thoughts
themselves and generously allows us a
rare glimpse into his own history.
Director Nicolas Philibert, who is the
guest of honour (see pages 14-15), will
give a public interview following this
screening.
10
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
Boxes
Birkin recalls: ‘About ten years ago, I
began writing about a woman of 45-50
years old . . . the panic, the mystery,
the fears of a specific age . . . Of what
use will she be? She who from the age
of 19 was able to give children to the
men she loved . . . Who will love you
with all this baggage, this past history? Or were you just loved for that?’
Birkin has gathered together a stellar
cast: John Hurt, Geraldine Chaplin, as
well as her two daughters, Charlotte
Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon.
This new film by New Wave master
Jacques Rivette sees him returning to
his beloved Balzac as a source. Unlike
La belle noiseuse, Ne touchez pas la
hache is very much a literal adaptation
of the novella La Duchesse de
Langeais which makes up part of
Balzac's La Comédie humaine.
Best described as a romantic duel,
Balzac's novella tells of the tumultuous relationship between a French
General, Armand de Montriveau
(Guillaume Depardieu), and the
coquettish but married Duchess
Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne
Balibar).
Rivette’s trademark long takes allow
the words and the actors’ performances to shine through. Balibar and
Depardieu are more than up to the
task, igniting both verbal and physical
fireworks. Lavishly produced, with luxurious costumes and sets, the film
brings us straight into the inner circles
of the upper classes of Restoration-era
Paris, when society was dominated by
hypocrisy, vanity and money.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
11
Un homme perdu
Retour en Normandie
A Lost Man
Back To Normandy
Director: Danielle Arbid
Cast: Melvil Poupaud, Carol Abboud,
Alexander Siddig
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Monday 19 November (9:00pm)
France, 2007, 93 mins, Colour
Melvil Poupaud stars as Thomas Koré,
a French photographer who travels
around the world for his research
about extreme experiences. For him,
an experience does not exist unless it
is photographed, women are objects
to be used and discarded, and a mystery is not solved unless it is demystified.
During his travels, he crosses paths
with Fouad Saleh (played by BritishSudanese actor Alexander Siddig) a
solitary and amnesic man who disappeared from Beirut 17 years ago and
never returned. Intrigued, Koré sets
out to chronicle the history of this
man, and this journey into the heart of
a forbidden world changes both their
lives forever.
Danielle Arbid, the award-winning
director of Dans les champs de
bataille, was born in Lebanon and
began her career as a journalist. The
character of Koré is based on Antoine
d’Agata, a photographer, who served
as an advisor on the script.
La question humaine
Nos retrouvailles
Ne touchez pas la hache
Heartbeat Detector
In Your Wake
Don’t Touch The Axe
Director: Nicolas Klotz
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Michael
Lonsdale, Jean-Pierre Kalfon
Director: David Oelhoffen
Cast: Jacques Gamblin, Nicolas Giraud,
Jacques Spiesser
Director: Jacques Rivette
Cast: Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume
Depardieu, Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier
Saturday 17 November (6:15 pm)
Director: Jane Birkin
Cast: Jane Birkin, Michel Piccoli,
Géraldine Chaplin, John Hurt, Charlotte
Gainsbourg
Tuesday 20 November (5:00 pm)
Tuesday 20 November (8:30 pm)
Wednesday 21 November (6:00pm)
Wednesday 21 November (8:00pm)
France, 2007, 116 mins
France, 2007, 95 mins
France, 2007, 143 mins
France, 2007, 99 mins
France / Italy, 137, mins
In 1975, as a young man, Nicolas
Philibert worked as an assistant director on Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant
égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et mon
frère . . . , a film by René Allio. Based
on a true event that occurred in
Normandy in 1835, the film told the
tale of a 20-year-old peasant who slit
the throats of several members of his
family with a billhook. Most of the
roles were played by farmers in the
region. Thirty years later, Philibert
decided to find these people again, to
remember the adventure they shared
so many years before, but also to film
them in their present lives.
Jane Birkin, best known as an actress
and pop icon of the 60s, can now add
director to her list of accomplishments. Boxes, her first feature film, is
a bittersweet chronicle of a woman in
the midst of a crisis. Birkin plays Anna,
who has just moved into a new house
in Brittany, full of packing cartons,
each of which is a Pandora's box of
memories. At a stage in her life when
time is rushing forward at a dizzying
pace, Anna tries to draw breath, to
confront her past, visualise herself in
the future and, perhaps, believe in
love one more time.
Simon is the corporate psychologist
for the German firm FC Farb, a petrochemical company based in Paris. He
is well-respected for his work, selfassured, ambitious, and a trusted
member of staff. But when the assistant director presents him with the
challenge of assessing the mental
health of the firm’s director, he is
forced to confront some disturbing revelations about his methods and his
workplace. Simon's search heads
down an unexpected path, yielding
more and more questions about the
history of FC Farb, in particular the
company’s relationship with the Nazi
régime in the Second World War.
Marco (Nicolas Giraud) leads a solitary,
humdrum existence working in a canteen. From out of nowhere his
estranged father Gabriel stumbles
back into his life. Even though his sudden presence opens old wounds and
revives Marco’s resentment, he still
sees this return as a welcome breath
of fresh air in his otherwise desolate
and solitary world. Gabriel personifies
nightlife, partying, exuberance.
Looking for cash to open his own
nightclub, Gabriel proposes a plan to
rob a warehouse outside of Paris.
Fuelled by his desire to make up for
lost time, Marco gets caught up in
Gabriel’s dangerous scheme.
Working again with Elisabeth Perceval
(here adapting François Emmanuel's
book), Nicolas Klotz has cemented his
reputation as one of France’s most
provocative and politically engaged
filmmakers. The third in a loose trilogy,
preceded by Pariah and La blessure, La
question humaine is perhaps the most
haunting.
An award-winning short filmmaker
who also wrote the script, David
Oelhoffen has crafted a highly watchable psychological drama which focuses as much on the father and son relationship as it does on the heist the two
are preparing. The cinematography
and performances by the excellent cast
are restrained and so finely tuned that
the tension around the crisis point is
palpable.
Using his trademark style, Philibert
unobtrusively uses the premise of
revisiting the making of Moi, Pierre
Riviere . . . into an exploration of collective memory, rural community life
and, of course, cinema. With great
patience and care, he allows his subjects to reveal their intimate thoughts
themselves and generously allows us a
rare glimpse into his own history.
Director Nicolas Philibert, who is the
guest of honour (see pages 14-15), will
give a public interview following this
screening.
10
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
Boxes
Birkin recalls: ‘About ten years ago, I
began writing about a woman of 45-50
years old . . . the panic, the mystery,
the fears of a specific age . . . Of what
use will she be? She who from the age
of 19 was able to give children to the
men she loved . . . Who will love you
with all this baggage, this past history? Or were you just loved for that?’
Birkin has gathered together a stellar
cast: John Hurt, Geraldine Chaplin, as
well as her two daughters, Charlotte
Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon.
This new film by New Wave master
Jacques Rivette sees him returning to
his beloved Balzac as a source. Unlike
La belle noiseuse, Ne touchez pas la
hache is very much a literal adaptation
of the novella La Duchesse de
Langeais which makes up part of
Balzac's La Comédie humaine.
Best described as a romantic duel,
Balzac's novella tells of the tumultuous relationship between a French
General, Armand de Montriveau
(Guillaume Depardieu), and the
coquettish but married Duchess
Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne
Balibar).
Rivette’s trademark long takes allow
the words and the actors’ performances to shine through. Balibar and
Depardieu are more than up to the
task, igniting both verbal and physical
fireworks. Lavishly produced, with luxurious costumes and sets, the film
brings us straight into the inner circles
of the upper classes of Restoration-era
Paris, when society was dominated by
hypocrisy, vanity and money.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
11
Dans les cordes
Pas douce
Un secret
In the ring
Parting Shot
CLOSING FILM
Le voyage du ballon
rouge
Le prestige de la mort
Director: Magaly Richard-Serrano
Cast: Richard Anconina, Maria de
Medeiros, Louise Szpindel, Stéphanie
Sokolinski
Thursday 22 November (2:00pm)
Director: Jeanne Waltz
Cast: Isild Le Besco, Lio, Steven de
Almeida
Director: Claude Miller
Cast: Cécile de France, Patrick Bruel,
Ludivine Sagnier
Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Song Fang,
Simon Iteanu
Director: Luc Moullet
Cast: Luc Moullet, Bernadette Lafont,
Christine Vézinet
Director: Alain Berliner
Cast: Vincent Elbaz, Jean-Pierre Cassel,
Cécile de France, Jeanne Balibar
Thursday 22 November (6:30 pm)
Thursday 22 November (8:30 pm)
Sunday 18 November (8:45 pm)
Monday 19 November (4:30 pm)
Monday 19 November (7:00 pm)
France, 2007, 93 mins
France, 2007, 84 mins
France, 2007, 105 mins
France, 2007, 113 mins
France, 2006, 75 mins
Belgium/Luxembourg, 2007, 106 mins
French comedy director extraordinaire
Luc Moullet is not as well known outside France as he should be. In his
most recent outing, Moullet directs
and stars as himself in an odd but
hilarious new comedy. The premise
has Moullet (in a depreciative self-caricature) as an over-the-hill director who
has hit upon a new scheme to restore
public interest in his own work: he
fakes his own death (delayed, within
the story, by the passing of Jean-Luc
Godard), then assumes the identity of
an oddball drifter whose body he finds
in the desert during a location-scouting trip. He is convinced that the royalties will pour in from the use of his film
clips in television. No points for guessing that the ploy works – but how will
Moullet contend with his new persona,
or continue his film career, without
raising the suspicions of nearly everyone?
François Maréchal seems set – he is
happily married with a beautiful young
wife (Cécile de France), father to a son
he adores, and he has just been promoted in his job as general manager of
a DVD rental shop. All is going to plan
until one day when he sees Singing in
the Rain, and becomes obsessed with
the idea of becoming a tap dancer.
Turning his back on his happy home
life, he starts to ignore his wife, his
work and everything in favour of his
passion. Even though he really isn’t
very good at tap dancing, he perseveres, and eventually is hired in a
small run-down joint in the suburbs
where he comes face to face with his
past and the father he thought was
dead. Turns out the apple didn’t fall far
from the tree.
Death’s Glamour
Flight of the Red Balloon
Joseph manages a boxing club in a
small suburban city while, at the same
time, training his daughter and niece
for the French championships. Boxing
is everything for this threesome, their
lives consumed by their passion for
the sport – a passion that Theresa,
Joseph's wife, ends up detesting. The
defeat of one of the two girls throws
the survival of the club into peril and
shatters the family's equilibrium.
Between the two young women, Angie
and Sandra, raised as if sisters, a dangerous rivalry begins to fester, both
inside and outside of the ring.
Director Richard-Serrano drew on her
own personal experiences to make
Dans les cordes. Her grandfather was a
boxer who ran a boxing club, her mother was one of the first female boxers in
France and Richard-Serrano herself
has twice been crowned the French
women’s boxing champion. Shot in her
hometown of Vitry-sur-Seine, Dans les
cordes captures with warmth and honesty the struggle of a working-class
family for whom boxing is everything.
12
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
The French title of this tale of anger,
guilt and redemption translates literally as ‘not sweet’, and it refers to the
film’s main character, a young woman
named Fred. Played by the wonderful
French actress Isild Le Besco, Fred
appears at first as a solemn, delicate
person with a gentle voice. But underneath that soft exterior is a defiant and
self-destructive rage that earns her the
tart nickname.
Fred works as a nurse at a hospital in a
small mountain town on the FrancoSwiss border; her boyfriend has broken up with her, and she no longer
speaks to her father. She also has a
rifle, and she’s an expert shot. She
takes her rifle into the woods with the
intention of killing herself, but is distracted by two teenagers engaged in a
tussle. In the heat of her own selfdestructive turmoil, she impulsively
turns the barrel on one of the boys. In
a split second, an act of violence
becomes an act of discovery that
changes her life, and the boy’s, forever.
Claude Miller's extraordinary new film
Un secret traces the life of a Jewish
family during and after the Second
World War. Adapted from Phillipe
Grimbert's autobiographical novel,
this film is one of Miller's finest works
in years.
An exploration of dark secrets and
passion, the story centres on François,
who is trying to come to terms with
conflicting memories from his childhood. An only son, he was always
haunted by a sense that he had a
phantom brother. Now an adult, he
embarks on a search for answers.
What he uncovers is a painful history
of a family struggling to survive during
the Occupation, forced to decide
between declaring and concealing
their Jewish identity. Using a complex,
seamless structure of flashbacks,
Miller has created a fresh and moving
exploration of this trouble period in
French history.
Cécile de France is luminous as the
glamorous mother and Julie Depardieu
excels as François' childhood confidante, the witness who finally breaks
the silence and reveals the family
secret.
The helium-filled icon of Albert
Lamorisse’s beloved Le ballon rouge
serves as the breathtaking inspiration
for Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first film set outside of Asia. Commissioned by the
Musée d'Orsay, the film’s focus is on
Suzanne (played by the wonderful
Juliette Binoche), a whirlwind of a
mother and artist. She works as a puppeteer – Chinese puppet theatre is a
running theme for Hou – and is devoted to her young son, Simon. But she is
self-obsessed, slightly manic and desperately in need of serious help
around the house. She hires Song, a
Taiwanese film student living in Paris,
to mind Simon.
Like Hou’s previous work, the film is
contemplative and breathtakingly
beautiful, offering picture postcard
glimpses of the French capital and all
its charms. But it is also a direct and
honest look at the life of a single parent, and at the intersection between
East and West, through the medium of
storytelling and cinema.
J'aurais voulu être un
danseur
Gone For A Dance
Moullet has said that he was inspired
by Cecil B. DeMille’s 1918 film The
Whispering Chorus and André
Berthomieu’s film Mort en fuite to create this wonderful mockumentary
which lies somewhere between biting
satire and farce.
Alain Berliner, director of the universally acclaimed Ma vie en rose, once
more intertwines poetry and reality in
a magical combination of beautiful settings and storytelling. This film also
features one of the last performances
of the legendary Jean-Pierre Cassel,
who gives a charming turn as a man
who devotes his life to dancing.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
9
Special Presentation
NICOLAS
Nicolas Philibert is one of Europe’s most celebrated and well-loved documentary filmmakers. Born in Nancy, France, in
1951, Philibert studied philosophy before becoming an assistant director working with such notable directors as René
Allio, Alain Tanner, Claude Goretta and Joris Ivens.
Philibert’s first documentary feature La Ville Louvre (1990), is a fascinating portrait of the famous museum’s nocturnal
activities. Philibert quickly established a reputation for approaching his subjects with honesty and tenderness with his
next film Les Pays Des Sourds (1993), a study of the world through the eyes of the deaf. In 1995, the French director
returned to the subject of museums, deepening the human factor with humor. Un Animal, Des Animaux, explores the
zoological wing of France's Museum of Natural History, which had been closed for years, and brings to light its unusual treasures. La moindre des choses (1997) follows the rehearsals for a summer play in one of France’s most highly
regarded mental institutions. >
Moi, pierre rivière...
Ensemble, ç’est tout
Le sang d’un poète
Hunting and Gathering
Blood of A Poet
WITH LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT
14
Le Pays des sourds
La Moindre des choses
Être et avoir
The Land of the Deaf
Every Little Thing
To Be And To Have
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Thursday 15 November (4:00 pm)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Friday 16 November (1:30 pm)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Saturday 17 November (12:00 pm)
France, 1992, 99 mins
France, 1996, 105 mins
France, 2002, 104 mins, Colour
“I wanted to give a ‘voice,’ if I may use
the term, to people whom we usually
see only through the prism of their disability. I wanted to show that we can
approach them in other ways.” Nicolas
Philibert enters the world of deafmutes and, with dignity and simplicity,
shows us the strength and diversity of
the community. What is the world like
to the thousands of people who live in
silence? Jean-Claude, Abou, Claire,
Florent and the other characters were
either born deaf or became deaf in the
first few months of their lives. With
them, we set out to discover a land
where vision and touch take on
increased importance.
During the summer of 1995, true to
what has now become a tradition, residents and staff at the La Borde psychiatric clinic get together to put on the
play that they will perform on 15
August. During rehearsals, the film
retraces the ups and downs of this
adventure. But over and above the theatre, it describes life at La Borde,
everyday life, time passing, trivial
goings-on, loneliness and tiredness,
as well as the moments of merriment,
laughter, and wit peculiar to certain
residents, and the close attention
which people pay to one another...
Être et avoir unfolds during four distinct seasons in one of France's few
remaining one-room schoolhouses, in
rural St.-Etienne-sur-Osson, population
200. The teacher, the charismatic
Georges Lopez, presides over 13 students, ages 3 to 15, who are separated
by age into three groups that work at
three separate large tables. Lopez has
lived above the school for the past 21
years and is set to retire. He is at the
centre of the film, acting a teacher /
friend / father / confessor to the children, each of whom is filmed in his or
her budding individuality.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
Director: René Allio
Director: Claude Berri
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Guillaume Canet,
Laurent Stocker
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Enrique Rivero, Lee Miller,
Pauline Carton
Saturday 17 November (3:15 pm)
Saturday 17 November (8:45pm)
Sunday 18 November (1:00pm)
France, 1975, 130 mins
France, 2007, 95 mins
France, 1930, 55 mins
Based on documents compiled by
Michel Foucault, this film is a uniquely
original meditation on a gruesome
19th century crime. The story happens
in a Normandy village in 1835, as a
very young man, Rivière, murders his
mother, sister and brother before running away to the countryside. The written confession of Rivière himself is one
of the voiceovers. Rivière was convinced that his mother was weakening
and humiliating his father - and his
words on this subject are deeply disturbing.
Claude Berri's newest film is a bittersweet exploration of loneliness, ageing
and finding love.
The cast, mostly villagers found in the
places where the events had taken
place 150 years before, creates an
interesting atmosphere of hyper-realism.
René Allio accomplishes the unique
feat of producing an (almost) ethnographic document, an historical film,
and an inquiry into a psychopathological case.
Scrawny Camille has a talent for drawing, but works as a cleaner and lives in
a Parisian attic. One night, she meets a
fellow tenant, courtly and erudite
Philibert, who has a stutter and an
aristocratic surname a mile long.
Philibert lives in a vast bourgeois
apartment that could be sold by his
late grandmother's estate at any
moment. His roommate Franck works
long hours as a cook six days a week.
He drinks, smokes and beds brainless
babes, but is antsy and dissatisfied.
Franck loves his grandmother Paulette
(Alain Resnais’ regular Françoise
Bertin), who raised him, but resents
having to spend precious days off visiting her after she breaks her leg.
Then circumstances force all four of
them to live under the one roof for a
year, and to learn each other’s ways.
The cast are pitch-perfect in this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Anna
Galvada, which veteran director Berri
has infused with a light touch.
A silent film set to a new score performed live by a seven-piece ensenmble, this is a real treat for Cocteau
fans.
Jean Cocteau made his first foray into
cinema with the haunting collage-like
film Le Sang d’un Poète. Financed by
the philanthropic Vicomte de Noailles,
it shimmers with energy and invention,
inaugurating a style that Cocteau
would rework in each of his future
films. Borrowing the sexual undertones and dreamlike structure of his
plays, novels and paintings, Cocteau
presents a sequence of seemingly
unrelated events, all depicting the
philosophical and metaphysical struggles of the artist.
3epkano, the Dublin-based collective,
blend electronic and acoustic instruments to create contemporary scores
to classic silent films. Creating music
for 3epkano is a process of patient
exploration and tentative discovery.
The result is a compelling and unique
cinematic experience.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
7
PHILIBERT
Guest of Honour
> Outside France, Philibert is best-known for his award-winning documentary Être et avoir (To Be and to Have), an
account of a teacher’s year in a one-room schoolhouse in rural France. Minimalist and exceedingly moving, Être et
avoir was praised by critics and also achieved a rare feat in France: box office success.
La France
Substitute
Naissance des pieuvres
What sets Philibert’s work apart from other documentary filmmakers is his commitment to revealing the extraordinary
which exists within the ordinary. His approach is one of engagement through patient observation, capturing all the
little details which reveal what is interesting about each situation to the viewer. His fly-on-the-wall approach enables
him to gain incredible access to locations normally forbidden to strangers, and certainly to filmmakers. On set, his
patience allows him, and ultimately us, to watch actions unfold in a non-linear fashion - to see people reveal themselves in unpredictable, often astonishing, ways.
Water Lilies
Director: Serge Bozon
Cast: Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory,
Guillame Depardieu
Director: Fred Poulet
Cast: Vikash Dhorasoo
Friday 16 November (5:10 pm)
Friday 16 November (7:00 pm)
Friday 16 November (8:45 pm)
France, 2007, 102 mins
France, 2006, 96 mins
France, 2007, 85 mins
Autumn 1917. World War I. Miles from
the fighting, Camille’s life revolves
around the letters she receives from
her soldier husband. Her life is shattered when she receives a cryptic note
from him ending their relationship.
Distraught, she decides to disguise
herself as a man to go and find him.
She heads for the frontline cutting
across fields to avoid the gendarmes
and, in a forest, she comes across a
small group of lost soldiers who do not
suspect her true identity. She joins
them, and in time discovers the real
reason why the men have drifted off
course.
For those who were disappointed by
the impersonal tone of last year’s hit
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait,
Substitute is the perfect antidote.
A collaboration between video director
Fred Poulet and French midfielder
Vikash Dhorasoo, Substitute documents Dhorasoo’s 16 minutes on the
pitch in the 2006 World Cup tournament as well as the hours and hours of
frustration he endured when left on
the bench as the French team journeyed to the final.
Bozon shifts effortlessly between warweary soldiers trudging through the
forest to sweet musical numbers to
shocking, cold-blooded murders. Aptly
described by Variety as ‘Bresson
meets the Beatles’, this audacious
WWI drama is a stark portrait of fighting and friendship on the Western
front. Defying all sorts of conventions,
you’ll soon understand why La France
won the prestigious Prix Jean Vigo earlier this year.
With footage shot almost entirely by
Dhorasoo himself on Super 8,
Substitute captures his initial excitement at being part of the top team and
his growing frustration as he is left off
the team by coach Raymond
Domenech and sidelined by the rest of
the squad. Honest and poignant, this
film offers an insight into the world of
football we rarely see – instead of
WAGs and beautiful goals, the reality
of broken dreams and defeat.
Naissance des pieuvres caused a buzz
at this year’s Cannes Film Festival as its
director, 27-year old Céline Sciamma,
had never even directed a short before
turning the screenplay she wrote for
school into a feature film.
Marie is a petite 15-year-old girl from a
Parisian suburb who looks underdeveloped when compared to her classmates and the girls on the synchronised swimming team she is so eager
to join. Her best friend Anne is Marie’s
physical opposite and is gutsy in ways
Marie can only dream of. Anne and
Marie's relationship changes dramatically when Marie starts hanging out
with Floriane, the stunning blonde with
the model-like body who is the swim
team’s captain. Floriane decides to use
Marie as an excuse to sneak out for
lovemaking sessions with her current
boyfriend, forging, if not a friendship,
at least a sense of uneasy complicity.
Sciamma’s revealing and uncomfortable look into the world of teenage
girls has a raw edginess that led some
French critics to describe her as a
young Catherine Breillat.
Director Céline Sciamma will be present at this screening and will give a
Q&A afterwards.
6
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
FAS / SCREEN TRAINING IRELAND
presents
Director: Céline Sciamma
Cast: Pauline Acquart, Louise Blachére,
Adele Haenel
A Director’s Masterclass with
Nicolas Philibert
La Ville Louvre
Un animal, des animaux
Louvre City
Animals and More Animals
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Monday 19 November (1:30 pm)
Director: Nicolas Philibert
Tuesday 20 November (1:30 pm)
France, 1990, 81 mins
France, 1996, 59 mins
What happens at the Louvre Museum
when it is closed to the public? During
the Grand Louvre’s extensive renovations, the museum opened its corridors to a film crew for the first time.
People are seen moving paintings and
reorganising rooms. Miles of underground corridors and galleries cross
each other. Little by little, the secret,
and sometimes comical, mundane,
sublime and fascinating world of one
of the most famous museums in the
world is revealed. A veritable city within a city opens its heart to us.
The zoological gallery of France’s
Natural History Museum was closed to
the public for over 25 years, leaving
thousands of stuffed animals forgotten
in the shadows. Shot during the
gallery’s renovations, the film documents its metamorphosis and the resurrection of its strange lodgers.
On Saturday 17th November (12:00
pm) following the screening of Être et
Avoir, the Masterclass will commence
at 2:00 pm. It will focus on the skills
and aesthetics of film directing in the
Documentary genre, illustrated by
clips from Philibert’s work. Covering
Philibert’s own unique style and pioneering methods, it will cover his
approach to protagonists, sound
design, approach to camera work, as
well as his considerable work as an
editor. It will cover authorship /ownership of ‘the story’ and responsibility (ie
the director’s influence on the story),
issues of trust and relationships during and following the making of a film,
and the need for access, and legal
implications. Donald Taylor Black, from
the National Film School in Dun
Laoghaire will chair the Masterclass.
Philibert’s latest film, Back to
Normandy, will screen at 6:30pm. All
participants will be welcome to attend.
Masterclass fee €50, includes
admission to Être et avoir.
Meeting Room, Irish Film Institute
17th November, 2007
*Note: There will be an onstage public
interview with Nicolas Philibert following the screening of his new film
Retour en Normandie.
All applications must me made online
at www.screentrainingireland.ie.
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
15
A L’Ouest!
Three of the best films in the Festival will also travel west to Galway,
and bookings for these can be made on 091 780078.
Ensemble, c’est tout
Monday 19 November (7:30pm)
Claude Berri's newest film is a bittersweet exploration of loneliness, ageing
and finding love.
Scrawny Camille has a talent for drawing, but works as a cleaner and lives in
a Parisian attic. One night, she meets a
fellow tenant, courtly and erudite
Philibert, who has a stutter and an
aristocratic surname a mile long.
Philibert lives in a vast bourgeois
apartment that could be sold by his
late grandmother's estate at any
moment. His roommate Franck works
long hours as a cook six days a week.
He drinks, smokes and beds brainless
babes, but is antsy and dissatisfied.
Franck loves his grandmother Paulette
(Alain Resnais’ regular Françoise
Bertin), who raised him, but resents
having to spend precious days off visiting her after she breaks her leg.
TV5MONDE
the best in cinema
en français
Digital TV Ch. 825
& Analogue
Call 1890 918 444
Films and fiction series every day of the week
from 5.30 p.m on TV5MONDE
RECEPTION/PROGRAMME details : (01) 8333893 / O86 3815123
[email protected]
www.tv5.org/cinema
Channel 799
Call 0818 719 819
Then circumstances force all four of
them to live under the one roof for a
year, and to learn each other’s ways.
GALWAY
Ce que je sais de Lola
Un homme perdu
Lola
A Lost Man
Tuesday 20 November (7:30pm)
Wednesday 21 November (7:30pm)
Director Javier Rebollo's first feature,
shot in French and in Spanish, is a
visually provocative tale of a conventional loner who becomes a silent
voyeur obsessed by desire and an
impossible love.
Leon is a youngish man who lives in an
apartment in an unexciting part of
Paris, where he seems to do no work
but look after his bed-ridden mother.
For fun, he prises his neighbours' letters out of the apartment block's letterboxes or goes to insignificant train
stations to watch unknown passengers
come and go. This quietly pursued
activity is kept at a low level until a
noisy Spanish woman, Dolores
(Spanish actress Lola Dueñas, last
seen in Volver) also known as Lola,
moves into the flat next door. Lola is
bold and irresistible to the placid Leon.
He starts writing a diary of the minute
details of her life, her daily activities,
her ups and downs. Quietly, and for
years, their separate lives run in a
shadowy and eventually dangerous
parallel.
Melvil Poupaud stars as Thomas Koré,
a French photographer who travels
around the world for his research
about extreme experiences. For him,
an experience does not exist unless it
is photographed, women are objects
to be used and discarded, and a mystery is not solved unless it is demystified.
During his travels, he crosses paths
with Fouad Saleh played by BritishSudanese actor Alexander Siddig a
solitary and amnesic man who disappeared from Beirut 17 years ago and
never returned. Intrigued, Koré sets
out to Chronicle the history of this
man, and this journey into the heart of
a forbidden world changes both their
lives forever.
Danielle Arbid, the award-winning
director of Dans les champs de
bataille, was born in Lebanon and
began her career as a journalist. The
character of Koré is based on Antoine
d’Agata, a photographer who served
as an advisor on the script.
EYE Cinema, Wellpark, Galway Tel: 091 78 00 78 www.eyecinema.ie
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
17
Belle toujours
Tout est pardonné
Ce que je sais de Lola
All Is Forgiven
Lola
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
Cast: Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier,
Ricardo Trêpa, Leonor Baldaque
Sunday 18 November (2:15 pm)
Tuesday 20 November (7:00 pm)
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Cast: Paul Blain, Marie-Christine
Friedrich, Victoire Rousseau,
Constance Rousseau
Sunday 18 November (4:30 pm)
Director: Javier Rebollo
Cast: Michaël Abiteboul, Lola Dueñas,
Carmen Machi
Portugal / France, 2006, 70 mins
France, 2007, 105 mins
France / Spain, 2006, 112 mins
Victor lives in Vienna with his Austrian
wife Annette and their 6-year-old
daughter Pamela. Victor and Annette’s
is a difficult marriage. He, a failed
writer, feels isolated by her extended
family and spends his days, and sometimes his nights, out of the house. Very
much attached to him, Annette hopes
that he will get his act together once
they move back to Paris. But in France,
Victor doesn't give up his bad habits
and after a violent argument, he leaves
the family home to live with his girlfriend, a junkie. Annette takes Pamela
and returns to Vienna. But 11 years
later, she and Pamela are again living
in Paris and Victor tentatively lays the
groundwork for a reunion.
Director Javier Rebollo's first feature,
shot in French and in Spanish, is a
visually provocative tale of a conventional loner who becomes a silent
voyeur obsessed by desire and an
impossible love.
This sly, witty work by Portuguese
master Manoel de Oliveira (soon to
celebrate his 98th birthday) revisits
Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle de
jour, or at least two of its characters,
marvellously played by Michel Piccoli
and Bulle Ogier (in the role originated
by Catherine Deneuve).
Henri (Piccoli), long ago rejected by
Séverine (Ogier), is now in possession
of a secret that she is anxious to learn.
The erotic cat-and-mouse game they
play across Paris results in a delicious
comedy of manners. There is also a
wonderful, gracious freedom in the
tribute that one major film director
pays another: Oliveira captures the
wry perversity of Buñuel’s late style,
while bringing his own unpredictable,
worldly spirit to the table.
Oliveira’s Belle toujours is very much
its own film – not a shot is wasted and
at an hour and ten minutes it is an
unexpectedly moving and sweet elegy
on ageing, sexuality and the power of
cinema.
18
The Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival 2007
First-time director Hansen-Løve has
carefully crafted a narrative that
reveals as much about how a family is
built as how one is destroyed by a
series of small dramatic moments.
Watch out for the performances by two
unprofessional actresses, Victoire and
Constance Rousseau, two real-life sisters who both play the role of Pamela,
as a little girl and young woman
respectively.
Sunday 18 November (6:30 pm)
Leon is a youngish man who lives in an
apartment in an unexciting part of
Paris, where he seems to do no work
but look after his bed-ridden mother.
For fun, he prises his neighbours' letters out of the apartment block's letterboxes or goes to insignificant train
stations to watch unknown passengers
come and go. This quietly pursued
activity is kept at a low level until a
noisy Spanish woman, Dolores
(Spanish actress Lola Dueñas, last
seen in Volver) also known as Lola,
moves into the flat next door. Lola is
bold and irresistible to the placid Leon.
He starts writing a diary of the minute
details of her life, her daily activities,
her ups and downs. Quietly, and for
years, their separate lives run in a
shadowy and eventually dangerous
parallel.