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JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2015
 
French Cinema in the Midwest
 
 
HIGHLIGHTS
Jan 05 - March 09, 2015
Doc Films
University of Chicago
1212 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

Doc Films at the University of Chicago presents a two-month tribute to Jacques Doillon, one of the most creative members of the generation of French filmmakers that emerged in the aftermath of the New Wave. It's the first Chicago retrospective of his work since 1987. J

Supported by the France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago, the Institut Français and the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago.

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January 03 - March 04, 2015
Gene Siskel Film Center Chicago
164 North State Street
Chicago, IL 60601

The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago presents Godard: The First Wave, a series of seventeen features and three shorts concentrating on its early career. It centers on the first phase of Godard’s vast output, which represents one of the most remarkable creative bursts of the past century, plus a small collection of its later-period, The series runs concurrently with the master director's latest film, Goodbye to Language 3-D, making its long-awaited Chicago debut with a monthlong run at the Film Center.

Supported by the Institut français and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York and the Consulate General of France in Chicago.

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FESTIVALS & SERIES
Jan 16 - Feb 16, 2015
United States

After the success of My French Film Festival last year, the leading online worldwide French film Festival returns. For its fifth edition, the festival returns with new films, new partner platforms, as well as launches in theatres in several territories. The Jury will be presided by Michel Gondry with Joachim Lafosse (Belgium), Nadav Lapid
(Israel) and Abderrahmane Sissako (Mauritania).

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Jan - May 2015
Multiple Locations

Contemporary and classic French films are shown on Midwest campuses throughout the winter and spring 2015 as part of the 2015 Tournée French Film Festival Program.

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Feb 6 - 15, 2015
Union Theatre - UWM - Milwaukee

The 18th Annual Festival of Films in French at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee brings ten days of heart-warming, thrilling, and thought-provoking films, almost all Milwaukee premieres, including four special events: French Director Jean-Pierre Thorn's presentation of two of his documentaries on contemporary, multicultural France; a special double-feature, focusing on cinema and politics in 1930s France; Claude Lanzmann’s most recent documentary on the Shoah, The Last of the Unjust and the screening of the moving masterpiece silent film Mother by Jacques Feyder with musical accompaniment.

Supported by the The Tournées Festival Program and the Institut Français.

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Feb 12-14, 2015
Indiana University Cinema - Bloomington

Renowned Oscar-nominated film director Jean-Pierre Jeunet will be in residence at Indiana University Cinema for a lecture and to present four of his films. He has created some of the most distinctive arthouse films of the past 20 years. Combining his deep connection to French culture and history of cinema with an emphasis on visual storytelling, rhythm, surreal sets, interesting characters, magnified color tones, and childlike imagination, his films are firmly placed in the canon of stylized European cinema.

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Jan 21 - June 17, 2015
Alliance Française de Chicago

Clever, amusing, plain funny or downright hilarious, the retrospective features the best of contemporary French comedies, a genre Molière invented, with the new option to attend on some Saturday afternoons. Also new : a live stand-up comic to warm up the room before selected screenings. Leave your Netflix subscription, your smart phone and your i-pad at home… and come have fun!

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IN THEATERS
Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako
US release date: January 28, 2015
With Ibrahim Ahmed
France / Mauritania | 2014

2015 Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film!

Not far from Timbuktu, now ruled by the religious fundamentalists, Kidane lives peacefully in the dunes with his family and sheperd. In town, the people suffer, powerless, from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists determined to control their faith. Every day, the new improvised courts issue tragic and absurd sentences. Kidane and his family are being spared but their destiny changes when Kidane accidentally kills Amadou, the fisherman who slaughtered “GPS,” his beloved cow. He now has to face the new laws of the foreign occupants.

Feb 7 & 8: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus OH
Feb 20- March 1: Detroit Film Center, Detroit MI
Feb 20- March 1: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN
April 16: Indiana University Cinema, Bloomington IN

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Directed & Written by Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
With: Fabrizio Rongione, Marion Cotillard
Belgium, France, Italy | 2014
US release date: December 24, 2014

2015 Best Actress Oscar Nomination for Marion Cotillard

For the first time, Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne team up with a major international star, Marion Cotillard, to create a universal story about working-class people living on the edges of society.

Jan 16-22: Music Box Theatre, Chicag, IL
Opens Jan 22: Baxter, Louisville, KY
Opens Jan 30: Mariemont Theatre, Cincinnati, OH, Gateway Film Center, Columbus, OH and Tivoli Cinema, Kansas City, KS
Feb 13-19: The Ross, Lincoln, NE
Feb 16, 21-22: Indiana University Cinema, Bloomington, IN

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Directed by Céline Sciamma, 2014
US release date: Jan 30, 2015
With Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh
France | 2014

Chosen to open the 2014 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight, Girlhood bristles with energy and moves under the vital girl power of its young cast. Fed up with her abusive family situation, lack of school prospects and the “boys’ law” in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. Director Sciamma charts Marieme’s successive transformations from sidekick to gang-girl queen bee, and from a drug dealer’s moll to her own woman, with a shining innocence that owes much to the breakout performance of first-time actress Touré.

Feb 6-12: Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL (Chicago Premiere)
Feb 13: U.W. Cinematheque, Madison, WI
Feb 27: Block Cinema,  Evanston, IL

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Directed by Bruno Dumont
US release date: January 2, 2015
With Alane Delhaye, Lucy Caron, Bernard Pruvost
France | 2014

French auteur Bruno Dumont, best known for uncompromising and austere dramas, proves with the comedy Li'l Quinquin that he is capable of shifting gears without conceding his signature style. This absurdist, metaphysical murder mystery opens with the discovery of human body parts stuffed inside a cow in Northern France. Li'l Quinquin has been compared to Twin Peaks and True Detective. But simply speaking, Li'l Quinquin is "a wonderfully weird and unexpectedly hilarious" (Scott Foundas, Variety) masterwork from one of the most important contemporary French directors.

February 19-20: Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland OH

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Directed by Sophie Fillières
US release date: Dec 17, 2014
With Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric
France | 2014

Pomme and Pierre have been together a long time. Passion and spontaneity have given way to predictability and cold shoulders. On a hike together one afternoon, Pomme declares her independence by deciding to stay in the woods rather than return to an underwhelming life with Pierre. With wry humor and great delicacy, filmmaker Sophie Fillières (Gentille) crafts an intimate portrait of a pivotal moment in a long-term relationship.

Jan 16-22: Facets Cinémathèque , Chicago IL
March 18: Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, Cleveland, OH

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Directed by Frederick Wiseman
US release date: Nov 5, 2014
France / USA / UK | 2014

London’s National Gallery, one of the world’s foremost art institutions, is itself portrayed as a brilliant work of art in this, Frederick Wiseman’s 39th documentary.

Jan 16: Film Streams, Omaha NE
Jan 18: DeBartolo Center, Notre Dame IN
Jan 22 : Detroit Film Theater MI
Jan 24: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus OH
Jan 25: Cincinnati Art Museum OH
Jan 25: Michigan Twin, Ann Arbor
Feb 19: UWM Union Theatre, Milwaukee, WI
March 29: Indiana University Cinema, Bloomington

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Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
US release date: Oct 15, 2014
With With André Dussollier, Niels Arestrup, Burghart Klaußner
France / Germany | 2014

In this riveting adaptation of the stage success by Cyril Gély about Hitler's orders to destroy Paris if it fell in enemy hands, the great Volker Schlöndorff (Academy Award winner THE TIN DRUM) has created a psychologically elaborate game of political manners between two highly contrasting characters. While Choltitz entrenches himself behind his duty to obey unquestioningly all military orders, Nordling tries everything he can to appeal to reason and humanity and prevent the senseless destruction of the beloved 'City of Light'.

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January 25, 2015 | 3:00 pm
Directed by Alain Guiraudie
France | 2013

Winner of both the Queer Palm and the Best Director award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2013, Alain Guiraudie’s explicit erotic thriller is a Hitchcockian combination of high-wire tension and psychological exploration.

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February 5, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Directed Rithy Panh
Cambodia, France | 2013
With Randal Douc, Jean-Baptiste Phou
DeBartholo Perfoming Art Center - Notre Dame IN

Academy Award® Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, The Missing Picture explores filmmaker Rithy Panh's quest to re-create images lost during the period of the Khmer Rouge’s ruthless reign over Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Using intricately detailed clay figurines intercut with archival footage, he creates the missing pictures of what does not exist in photograph or film.

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RESTORATIONS
Marcel Carné, 1939
With Jean Gabin, Arletty

New Restoration!

A factory worker reflects on the circumstances of love, rivalry, and betrayal that have led to his dire standoff in a police dragnet. This new restoration is the complete version, including censored footage removed by the Vichy Government during WW2 occupation of France.

Feb 3: Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland OH

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Alain Resnais, 1959
With Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada

New DCP restoration!

Alain Resnais' first fiction feature is a dreamy portrait of a brief love affair and long conversation between a French actress and a Japanese architect that sets memories of war and past loves against a city still reeling from the atomic bomb. A catalyzing film for the French New Wave noted for its innovative approaches to narrative and editing, Hiroshima Mon Amour is a unique and profoundly affecting masterpiece.

Feb 10: DeBartolo Arts Center, South Bend
Feb14&15: Doc Films, Chicago
Feb 14&15: Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland
Feb 28: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus

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Eric Rohmer, 1992
With Charlotte Véry, Frédéric van den Driessche

New HD restoration!

Eric Rohmer was unsurpassed at creating intelligent romantic comedies and intelligent female characters. A Tale of Winter, one of his most genial and audacious films, is a superb example of both facets. With Rohmer’s characteristic delight in surprise and paradox, winter, not spring, is seen as the season of rebirth and renewal, and its tale begins on a sunny beach.

Jan 31 & Feb 1: Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland, OH*
Feb 6-12: Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL*
Feb 14: DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame, IN
March 28: Classic French Film Festival, St. Louis, MO

*Note: An imported 35mm archival print of the film, courtesy of the Institut français, will be shown at the Cleveland Cinematheque on Jan 31 & Feb 1 and at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Feb 8th & 12th.

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Directed by Paul Grimault
US release date: November 21, 2014
With Jean Martin, Pascal Mazzotti
France | 1980

New Restoration!

Based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, this wildly satirical feature follows a chimney sweep and shepherdess on the run from a tyrannical king. A masterpiece of traditional hand-drawn cell animation, it is credited by celebrated Japanese animators Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata as inspiring the creation of their own studio, the now world-famous Studio Ghibli.

Feb 28: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus OH
March 7 – 8, 12, 14 – 15, & 19: Film Streams, Omaha NE

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CLASSICS
Jan 17, 18, & 22, 2015
Directed by Albert Lamorisse
France | 1956
With

Le Ballon Rouge is a poetic fable about friendship and being different. Director Albert Lamorisse casts his son (Pascal Lamorisse) as a little boy who befriends a red balloon. The film is also a social criticic: the one who is different is chased by the others who envy him and try to destroy or even kill him, until a community of balloons come in solidarity to rescue the boy. Short, sweet, this film is eternal and timeless. No wonder it won both Palme d'Or from Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award.

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Jan 22, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Robert Bresson, 1956
Doc Films - Chicago

Part of the series Prison Break!: Great Escape Films of the 20th Century

Based on a true story and borrows from Bresson's own experiences as a member of the French Resistance captured by the Nazis, this masterpiece is a perfect example of minimalism, featuring spare imagery and technique, and of realism.

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Jan 22, 2015 | 9:15 pm
Jesús Franco, 1973
With Anne Libert, Britt Nichols
Doc Films - Chicago

Part of the series Behind the Convent Walls: Bad Habits and Naughty Nuns

A group of nun's become possessed by demons and are then tortured in a dungeon of horrors during the inquisition.Franco's delicate approach to the sex and torture scenes is simultaenously unsettling and appealing.

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Jan 23 & 27, 2015
Chris Marker, 1982
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago

Part of the series Instant Histories: New Documentary Forms in the Digital Age

Sans Soleil is the late Chris Marker’s most ambitious film and, in the eyes of many, his magnum opus. Centering on the electronic/feudal fabric of Tokyo, Marker unleashes his kaleidoscopic eye in an onslaught of dizzying associations that bounce around the world like a pinball.

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Jan 24 & 26, 2016
Werner Herzog, 2010
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity which are sealed off from public access.

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Jan 29, 2015 | 6:45 pm
France | 1934-47 | Various
Cleveland Cinematheque OH

Before he made his hilarious features starring his bumbling alter ego Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle, PlayTime, et al.), he acted in (and sometimes directed) short comedies. This program show four of them: Charles Barrois’ 23-min. On demande une brute (Wanted: A Brawny Wrestler, 1934), about wrestling; Jacques Berr and Tati’s 33-min. Gai dimanche (Lively Sunday, 1935), in which two bums spend a day in the country; René Clément’s 13-min. Soigne ton gauche (Watch Your Left, 1936), about boxing; and Tati’s 16-min. The School for Postmen (L'école des facteurs, 1947), a dry run for his manic first feature Jour de Fête (1949).

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Feb 1, 3 & 4, 2014
Wim Wenders, 2011
Germany/France/UK
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago

Special 3-D presentation!

This Oscar-nominated tribute to the late German avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch is every bit as haunting, unconventional, and moving as Bausch’s own work, which created new and challenging relationships of the body to objects, elements, and the environment.

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Feb 5, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Jacques Rivette, 1966
With Anna Karina, Liselotte Pulver
Doc Films
1212 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

Part ot the series Behind the Convent Walls: Bad Habits and Naughty Nuns

In eighteenth-century France a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire in this faithful adaptation of a bitter attack on religious abuses by the Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot. The film was banned for two years in France.

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February 11, 2015 | 7:00 pm
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame IN
Directed by Alain Resnais
With Claude Rich, Olga Georges-Picot
France | 1968

Part of the French New Wave and beyond

After a failed suicide attempt, Ridder (Claude Rich) agrees to be the test subject for a newly-developed time machine. Not everything goes as planned causing Ridder to relive his past out of sequence in yet another brilliant and moving meditation on time and memory from director Alain Resnais.

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Feb 13 & 17, 2015
Directed by Agnes Varda
With François Wertheimer, Agnès Varda
France | 2000
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago

Part of the series Instant Histories:New Documentary Forms in the Digital Age

The lone woman director of the French New Wave, Varda continued to cross new frontiers in this modest yet innovative film. She uses the then-novel flexibility and intimacy of small digital cameras to explore the world of gleaners--people of diverse backgrounds and motives who scavenge discarded food and objects, a practice long protected (though also circumscribed) by French law.

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Feb 17 - 18, 2015
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame IN

Contempt (Le Mépris) (1963)

Jean-Luc Godard’s subversive foray into commercial filmmaking is a star-studded Cinemascope epic. Michel Piccoli stars as a screenwriter torn between the demands of a proud European director (Fritz Lang), a crude and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for a new film version of The Odyssey.

Alphaville (1965)

A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard’s irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60.

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NEWS

France is nominated in 7 categories for the 2015 oscars.

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This February, Music Box Films invites U.S. home audiences into the heart of an exclusive 19th century bordello with Maison Close, Season 1. The edgy, provocative and ratings-busting Canal Plus+ Series arrives in the U.S. on February 10 available on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD (on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play).

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COMING UP IN MARCH
March 5-8, 2015
Columbia, MO
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March 6 - April 2, 2015
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago
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March 6 -31, 2015
Alliance Française de Chicago
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Mar 13 - 29, 2015
Webster University - Saint Louis
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March 18 - 29, 2015
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March 20-22, 2015
Western Michigan University
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NEW PROGRAM

YOUNG FRENCH CINEMA is a program of UniFrance films, in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, which aims to bring French films with no US distribution to art house cinemas, film societies, the Alliance Française network, and American universities.

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French Culture
IN THIS ISSUE
HIGHLIGHTS
 
FESTIVALS & SERIES
 
IN THEATERS
 
RESTORATIONS
 
CLASSICS
 
NEWS
 
COMING UP IN MARCH
 
NEW PROGRAM
 
 

CULTURAL SERVICE

Consulate General of France
205 North Michigan Avenue
Ste 3710
Chicago, IL 60601

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