Young French Cinéma

American Cinémathèque presents a series of young French filmmakers at the AERO in Santa Monica

A monthly series of high-profile independent films and quirky discoveries from emerging French talent. Presented by Unifrance Films with the support of the French Film & TV Office, French Consulate.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24 at 7:30 PM - Double Feature!

MACARONI AND CHEESE

LES COQUILLETTES

2012, Ecce Films, 75 min, France, Dir: Sophie Letourneur

 

 

                

This sly comedy, unspooling in flashbacks, takes viewers into the eye of a film festival hurricane - much of it was shot guerrilla-style at the 2011 Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. Writer-director Letourneur stars as a self-absorbed Parisian filmmaker who, with her two gal pals (Carole Le Page and Camille Genaud), pursues movies and men, not necessarily in that order, during their Swiss sojourn. “Consistently amusing and often blissfully silly.” - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.

In French, Italian and English with English subtitles.

Discussion between films with writer-director-actress Sophie Letourneur.


PARTY GIRL
2014, Distrib Films, 95 min, France, Dir: Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis

 

 

                 

Angélique (a marvelous Angélique Litzenburger) works as a bar hostess at a cabaret on the French-German border. At 60, she still enjoys the nightlife, though fewer men are attracted to her – except for Michel (Joseph Bour), a retired miner who surprises her with a marriage proposal. Winner of the Caméra d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

In French with English subtitles.









THURSDAY, JULY 16 at 7:30 PM - Double Feature!

THE RENDEZ-VOUS OF DÉJÀ VU

LA FILLE DU 14 JUILLET

2013, Shellac Distribution, 88 min, France, Dir: Antonin Peretjatko

 

 

                

From the Bastille Day parade that opens director Antonin Peretjatko’s feature debut, this film has a joie de vivre that recalls the freewheeling spirit of the ’60s French New Wave. An acrobat (Vimala Pons), her Louvre security-guard lover (Grégoire Tashnakian) and their friends take a beach vacation that gets interrupted by a government economic mandate. “Peretjatko’s film is a loopy and audacious comedy with an explicitly political setting and gleefully unleashes the brazen energy of youth.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker.

In French with English subtitles.





APACHES

LES APACHES

2013, Film Movement, 82 min, France, Dir: Thierry de Peretti

 

 

                

At the center of this nuanced look at class and racial friction is Aziz (Aziz El Hadachi), one of a group of Arab teens living on the island of Corsica. He invites his friends to party at a vacation home that his father takes care of, but when the homeowners arrive, they find several items missing – including an expensive hunting rifle that gets put to deadly use. In French and Arabic with English subtitles.










WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 at 7:30 PM - Double Feature!

GRAND CENTRAL

2013, Ad Vitam Distribution, 94 min, France, Austria, Dir: Rebecca Zlotowski

 

 

  

 

 

                 

Gary (Tahar Rahim) gets a maintenance job at a nuclear power plant in the French countryside – risky work made even riskier when he falls for a coworker’s fiancée (Léa Seydoux of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR). “A love triangle so intense it’s practically radioactive foregrounds GRAND CENTRAL, an engrossing, superbly acted working-class melodrama.” – Scott Foundas, Variety. In French with English subtitles.






DOMESTIC LIFE
LA VIE DOMESTIQUE     

2013, Films Distribution, 94 min, France, Dir: Isabelle Czajka

 

 

 

 

 

                 

This piercing adaptation of British writer Rachel Cusk’s Arlington Park shows how restrictive gender roles can be even in supposedly progressive households. Juliette (Emmanuelle Devos), husband Thomas (Laurent Poitrenaux) and their two kids move to a wealthy Paris suburb, where a pompous businessman at a dinner party and an old classmate remind Juliette that women’s aspirations are still treated as subservient to men’s. In French with English subtitles.





WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28 at 7:30 PM - Double Feature!

AGE OF PANIC

LA BATAILLE DE SOLFERINO

2013, Shellac Distribution, 94 min, France, Dir: Justine Triet

 

 

 

 

 

                 

May 6, 2012 becomes a hectic day for news correspondent Laetitia (Laetitia Dosch) - as she covers Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande’s victory, her unstable ex-husband (Vincent Macaigne) shows up at her apartment demanding to see their kids. The strong lead performances and scenes shot in Paris streets during Election Day add sparks to this indie dramedy. In French with English subtitles.







TONNERRE

2013, Wild Bunch, 102 min, France, Dir: Guillaume Brac

 

 

 

 

 

                

The little town of Tonnerre in Burgundy provides refuge to Maxime (Vincent Macaigne), a musician a bit past his prime. Things start looking up for him when he meets younger journalist Mélodie (Solène Rigot), until she suddenly breaks off their relationship, sending Maxime off the rails. As the film shifts from character study to thriller, Macaigne’s intense performance shows why he is among France’s most in-demand actors. In French with English subtitles.

 

FRENCH FILM NOIR

American Cinémathèque at the AERO Theatre - June 19-22

THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT: RARE FRENCH FILM NOIR, 1948-1963
Presented by the American Cinematheque and Midcentury Productions, with the support of the French Film & TV Office, French Consulate.

FRIDAY JUNE 19 at 7:30pm - Double Feature
THE TRUTH

LA VERITÉ

1960, Sony Repertory, 127 min, France/Italy, Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot

                

Brigitte Bardot tops her amazing work with Godard and Vadim in this scorching portrait of amour fou. She stars as Dominique, a hedonistic free spirit on trial for the murder of her lover, musician Sami Frey. Clouzot breaks ground in his fearless look at private insecurities, revealing what supposedly constitutes a “sordid” lifestyle, and why it is so threatening to bourgeois society. Co-written by Clouzot and his wife, Véra (star of Les Diaboliques). Winner of the 1961 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. In French with English subtitles.

 

    
LOVE IS MY PROFESSION

EN CAS DE MALHEUR

1958, 105 min, France/Italy, Dir: Claude Autant-Lara

                

Distinguished lawyer Jean Gabin defends Brigitte Bardot, a prostitute who has committed a robbery. After he gets her acquitted, she becomes his mistress. Alas, Gabin’s efforts to teach Bardot some class run into trouble in the form of her other lover - a handsome young student (Franco Interlenghi) with a murderous temper. With Edwige Feuillère. Based on a novel by Georges Simenon. In French with English subtitles.

SATURDAY JUNE 20 at 7:30pm - Double Feature
CLASSE TOUS RISQUES

1959, Rialto Films, 108 min, France/Italy, Dir: Claude Sautet

                

Lino Ventura delivers an awesome performance (maybe his best) as Davos, a gangster in the twilight of his career, on the run from the mob with his wife and family. Jean-Paul Belmondo (hot off his star turn in Breathless) co-stars as a young hood who comes to Ventura’s aid. Brilliantly scripted by Jose Giovanni, based on a story he had heard in prison. “In addition to its crisp action sequences, the film has an excellent sense of place, showing us Paris, Nice and the small villages and French countryside between. … One of the things that makes CLASSE TOUS RISQUES distinctive are the palpable emotional connections it makes with its characters. Though he is the hardest of hard cases, Davos cares deeply about his family, and the feelings of regret, sadness and desperation that cross his face are just one of the factors that make this film the classic it is.” - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times. In French with English subtitles.

UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE

1959, Gaumont, 86 min, France/Italy, Dir: Édouard Molinaro

                

France's greatest character lead in the 1960s and ’70s, Lino Ventura, has his breakout role here as a revenge murderer who, finding that his “perfect crime” was witnessed by a cab driver, must try to eliminate him. As events unfold, Ventura finds that he is as much hunted as hunter. Stunning night photography from Henri Decaë (Bob le Flambeur, Elevator to the Gallows), and an evocative score featuring jazz greats Kenny Clarke and Kenny Dorham. In French with English subtitles.

SUNDAY JUNE 21 at 7:30pm - Double Feature
DEADLIER THAN THE MALE    

VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS

1956, Pathe International, 113 min, France, Dir: Julien Duvivier

                 

While the other French femmes fatales are “hot,” none of them approach the coiled ferocity of Danièle Delorme here, driven to a life of ruthless scheming by her hardscrabble youth. Matching her step for step are Jean Gabin, the target of her desperate, malevolent plans; Germain Kerjean as his cold-hearted mother; Gerard Blain as his clueless surrogate son; and Luciene Bogart as Delorme’s drug-addicted mother. Featuring superb camerawork by Armand Thiraud (Clouzot's frequent collaborator), DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is arguably the definitive French film noir. In French with English subtitles.

CHAIR DE POULE

1963, 107 min, France/Italy, Dir: Julien Duvivier

                

Legendary director Julien Duvivier (Pépé le Moko) was nearing the end of his illustrious career, but he saved one of the best for last in this taut tale of fate, lust and enveloping entrapment. Robert Hossein is a thief on the lam who jumps from frying pan into the fire when he holes up at a highway truck stop and is quickly embroiled in the grasping schemes of a hard-bitten, voluptuous vixen (Catherine Rouvel) who will stop at nothing to get what she wants! Costarring Jean Sorel and Jacques Bertrand, with photography from Léonce-Henri Burel, longtime right-hand man of Robert Bresson. In French with English subtitles.

MONDAY JUNE 22 at 7:30pm - Double Feature
LE SEPTIÈME JURÉ

1962, Pathé International, 96 min, France, Dir: Georges Lautner

                

Dependable character actor Bernard Blier is given his chance to shine in a lead role here as Grégoire Duval, a man facing a predicament: After accidentally killing a local strumpet, he finds himself on a jury that must decide the fate of a man who he alone knows is innocent. As Duval comes to realize the depths of provincial perniciousness, this sordid story takes a strange and tragic turn. With Danièle Delorme as Duval’s icy, manipulative wife. In French with English subtitles.

DÉDÉE D'ANVERS

1948, 95 min, France, Dir: Yves Allégret

                

Bursting through the echoes of “poetic realism” contained within its narrative, this underworld drama showcases the emergence of Simone Signoret, a hooker with a hankering for a better life. The original femme fatale, Signoret is both luminous and complex, presaging a series of follow-up performances in similarly themed films over the next half-decade. A trio of indelible actors (Marcelo Pagliero, Marcel Dalio, Bernard Blier) provides Dédée with ecstasy, agony and sympathy, respectively. In French with English subtitles.