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JULY & AUGUST 2015
 
The 5th Annual Chicago French Film Festival
 
July 31 - August 6, 2015
Music Box Theatre - Chicago
Opening Night: $15 (Includes opening reception)
Individual Tickets: $12
Alliance Française de Chicago Members: $10 / $13
5-Film Pass: $45 (an $18 savings)

Music Box Theatre, in partnership with the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago and the Institut français in Paris, present the best in recent French cinema in the fifth annual Chicago French Film Festival.

This year’s highlights include opening night feature SK1, a gripping thriller that recounts the manhunt for the Beast of the Bastille, a serial killer that preyed on women in 1990s Paris. The festival will feature a tribute to Palme d'Or-winning director Abdellatif Kechiche (Blue is the Warmest Color) with screenings of Black Venus, Blame it on Voltaire, and Games of Love and Chance. Other highlights include René Clément’s Oscar-winning classic Forbidden Games; Breathe, the second feature film by actress-turned-director Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds); and the animated masterpiece The King and the Mockingbird.

Opening reception in the Music Box Lounge on Friday, July 31 at 6:00 pm followed by the film SK1 directed by Frédéric Tellier.

Francophiles and cinephiles alike, don't miss out on this unique cultural and cinematic experience!

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Directed by Frédéric Teller
Thriller, France, 2014, 119 minutes
With Raphaël Personnaz, Nathalie Baye
July, 31, 2015 - 7:00 pm & Aug 1, 2015 - 4:30 pm

Opening night reception at the Music Box Lounge at 6 pm on July 31.

In this gripping period thriller, SK1 is French police jargon for “Serial Killer 1,” the codename given in the 1990s to a rapist and murderer who preyed on young women in eastern Paris. The culprit was not the country’s first serial killer, but he was the first to be caught via DNA analysis — even if cops had to overcome years of bureaucratic bungling and bad luck to finally get to him.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by Paul Grimault
Comedy, France, 1979, 80 minutes
With Jean Martin, Pascal Mazzotti
July 31, 2015 - 9:45 pm & Aug 2, 2015 - 11.30 am

PERFECT FOR CHILDREN! PERFECT FOR ADULTS! Begun in 1948, completed in 1979 and adored by, among others, Studio Ghibli legend Hayao Miyazaki, Grimault’s influential cartoon contains some of the most beautiful animation ever, melding the dreamy weirdness of a Giorgio de Chirico painting with folk-art sweetness and an eccentric and witty script from Jacques Prévert.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by René Clément
Drama, France, 1952, 86 minutes
With Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, and Amédée
Aug 1, 2015 - 11:30 am & Aug 5, 2015 - 5:15 pm

A timeless evocation of childhood innocence corrupted, Forbidden Games tells the story of a young girl orphaned by WWII and the farm boy she joins in a fantastical world of macabre play which received the Foreign Language Film Academy Award in 1952.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Drama, France, 2000, 131 minutes
With Sami Bouajila, Élodie Bouchez
Aug 1, 2015 - 1:30 pm

In Kechiche’s debut feature, an illegal immigrant from North Africa lands in France to try his luck. From encounter to encounter, he makes his way through a Paris of outcasts discovering and sharing the mutual support of society’s disenfranchised. Winner of Best First Film & Young Audience Award at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. Print Courtesy of the Institut français.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by Jeanne Herry
Thriller, France, 2014, 105 minutes
With Chad McQueen, Sandrine Kiberlain
Aug 1, 2015 - 7:00 pm
Aug 3, 2015 - 9:00 pm

When a pop singer accidentally kills his girlfriend, he turns to his most devoted groupie to help clean up the mess in this exceptionally well-polished French thriller. Starring 2014 Cesar winner Sandrine Kiberlain (nominated also for this performance) as the not-all-there beautician who would do anything for her idol (Laurent Lafitte).

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by Stefan Liberski
Comedy, Belgium/Canada/France, 2014, 100 minutes
With Pauline Etienne, Taichi Inoue
Aug 1, 2015 - 9:15 pm & Aug 3, 2015 - 7:00 pm

A Belgian free spirit recalls a winsome cross-cultural romance with her Japanese French-language student in this charming, free adaptation of one of prolific author Amélie Nothomb’s semi-autobiographical novels. Mixing playfulness, intellect and contemporary events, the whimsical film “plays like Amélie meets Lost in Translation.”—The Hollywood Reporter

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Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Comedy-Drama, France, 2013, 123 minutes
With Osman Elkharraz, Sara Forestier
Aug 2, 2015 - 1:30 pm

Kechiche’s second feature is a spirited and insightful comedy of manners that connects France’s classical literary heritage with its contemporary social reality. A a high school, the reversals and obstructions of Marivaux’s comic plot filter through the confused mores and conflicting desires of various girls and boys. Winner of four 2005 César awards. Print Courtesy of the Institut français.

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Directed by Anne Ly Ny
Comedy-Drama, France, 2014, 91 minutes
With Karin Viard, Emmanuelle Devos
Aug 2, 2015 - 4:00 pm & Aug 4, 2015 - 5:00 pm

Food. . . love. . . friendship. . . betrayal. . . Emmanuelle Devos (Violette), and Karin Viard (Polisse), team up on-screen for the very first time and have terrific chemistry in this accomplished comedy-drama, as two women who want more out of life but are unsure how to obtain it.

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Directed by Mélanie Laurent
Drama, France, 2014, 90 minutes
With Joséphine Japy, Lou de Laâge, and Isabelle Carré
Aug, 2, 2015 - 6:00 pm & Aug 4, 2015 - 9:00 pm

An assured adaptation of the French young-adult novel Breathe by Anne-Sophie Brasme, the second feature by actress-turned-director Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds, Beginnings) is a taut coming-of-age tale, starring talented newcomers Joséphine Japy and Lou De Laâge as two teens whose all-consuming friendship takes a dark and dangerous turn.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Drama, France, 2010, 165 minutes
With Yashima Torres, Andre Jacobs
Aug 2, 2015 - 8 pm

After winning five awards at the 2007 Venice festival with The Secret of the Grain, Kechiche took on a period piece that illustrates racial science, abolitionism, public entertainments and sexuality in the early nineteenth century. The film is constructed as a series of vignettes that follow Baartman as she is put on display, but Kechiche insists on her inner dignity despite her constant, terrifying humiliation. Print Courtesy of the Institut français.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Directed by Julie Bernard
Documentary, France, 2014, 70 minutes
Aug 3, 2015 - 5:30 pm & Aug 5, 2015 - 9:15 pm

A delightful look at a vanishing breed, this vibrant documentary affectionately celebrates the artisans who create fabulous haute-couture outfits for Dior, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent and examines the challenges these ateliers face as couture and luxury evolves as a business, including the continuing rise of technology and its impact on handcrafted work.

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Directed by Martin Talbot
Drama, Canada, 2014, 100 minutes
With Victor Andrés Trelles Turgeon
Aug 4, 2015 - 7:00 pm & Aug 6, 2015 - 6:00 pm

Forced to leave his longtime covenant home when it is sold, Henri lets himself be led by different signs of destiny through encounters with a bitter old businessman who earned and lost a fortune making pickles and a dreamy cashier at the local porn palace.  Québec’s enchanting answer to Amélie also bears flourishes of Jacques Tati. Nominated for six Canadian Screen Award in 2015.

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Directed by Bruno Deville
Comedy-Drama, Switzerland/Belgium, 2014, 84 minutes
With David Thielemans, Swann Arlaud
Aug 5, 2015 - 7:15 pm & Aug 6, 2015 - 9:00 pm

Weighing 220 pounds, 12-year-old Kevin Bouboule’s life is far from easy at the mercy of his domineering mother, arrogant sisters and neighborhood bullies. His life seems pretty bleak, until that is, he comes across Rocco, a German shepherd belonging to the burly guard Patrick, and befriends both the dog and its owner. With great affection and charm, debuting director Deville tells the story of an outsider you can’t help but like.

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Directed by Jean-Paul Civeyrac
Drama, France, 2014, 95 minutes
With Guslagie Malanga, Nadia Moussa
Aug 6, 2015 - 6:00 pm

Adapted from a story by Doris Lessing, this complex, poignant portrait of two young black women in contemporary Paris follows them from childhood into adulthood. As Fanny and Victoria’s destinies take them in separate directions, the drama offers a distinctly fresh take on racial identity in contemporary France – and on questions of class, privilege and blinkered liberal racism.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
 
FRENCH CINEMA IN THE MIDWEST

Please find below a non-exhaustive list of French or French co-production films to catch this summer in theaters, cinemathèques and film centers across the Midwest !

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON US THEATRICAL RELEASES THIS SUMMER
 
CHICAGO
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago
July 17 & 21, 2015
Directed by Philippe de Broca, France, 1961
French with English subtitles

Director Philippe de Broca evokes Lubitsch and Ophüls in this romantic comedy about a transplanted Englishwoman with two children and a devoted, dorky French husband (François Périer). A recent digital restoration from the Cohen Film Collection.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago
July 17 - 23, 2015
Directed by Lucie Borleteau, France, 2014
French, Romanian, English, Tagalog, and Norwegian with English subtitles

Director Lucie Borleteau contrasts confined shipboard spaces, exotic ports of call, and the expanses of open sea to emphasize the main characher's struggle to decide between the security of a man awaiting her return and the alluring call of the unknown. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Gene Siskel Film Center
July 18 & 23, 2015
Directed by Orson Welles, France, 1962

Welles called his dazzling, disturbing adaptation of Kafka’s 1925 classic “the best film I have ever made” and “closer to my own feelings about everything than any other picture I’ve ever made.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago
July 24 - July 30, 2015
Directed by André Techiné, France, 2014
French with English subtitles

Iconic star Catherine Deneuve captivates the screen in this mystery based on a real case that scandalized the French Riviera in the late 1970 about Renée Le Roux, a wealthy casino owner, seeking justice for her daughter who has been missing for 30 years.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago
July 24 - 29, 2015
Directed by Alain Resnais, France, 1959
French with English subtitles

Based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras, Resnais’s groundbreaking first feature moves fluidly between Europe and Asia, past and present, and documentary and fiction to recount the Hiroshima-set love affair between a Japanese architect and a French movie actress haunted by her memories of a wartime romance with a German soldier. Recently restored by Rialto Pictures.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Music Box Theatre - Chicago
July 24 - 30, 2015
Directed by Fabrice du Welz, Belgium, 2014
French with English subtitles

Based on notorious real-life “lonely hearts killers” who make victims of their romantic liaisons, Alleluia is a dark and fascinating love story gone wrong from Belgian horror maverick Fabrice du Welz.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago
July 31 - August 6, 2015
Directed by Nadav Lapid, Israel/France, 2014
Hebrew with English subtitles

A daycare worker becomes obsessed with one of her charges, a five-year-old prodigy who paces the floor and spouts cryptic poetry whenever the inspiration takes him. Director Nadav Lapid weaves an increasingly dark tale, as the boy becomes both a symbol and a pawn for a circle of adults in search of meaning in their own lives.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Doc Films - University of Chicago
Aug 8, 2015 @ 7 & 9 pm
Directed by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, and Benjamin Renner, France, 2012

Adapted from the work of Gabrielle Vincent, this heartwarming animated feature tells the story of a young orphaned mouse, Celestine, whose defiance brings her into an unlikely friendship with Ernest, a bear.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Gene Siskel Film Center
Aug 14 -19, 2015
Directed by Xavier Nolan, Canada, 2013
French with English subtitles

First Chicago run!

Enfant terrible writer/director/actor Xavier Dolan (I KILLED MY MOTHER, MOMMY) spins a gothic tale steeped in lethal homoerotic attraction in this tense story based on a play by Michel Marc Bouchard.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
Gene Siskel Film Center
Aug 28 - Sept 3, 2015
Directed by Denys Arcand, Canada, 2014
French with English subtitles

First Chicago Run!

Oscar-winner Denys Arcand (THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS) has his satirical mojo working in this arch romance, balancing it with a breathtaking vision of changing seasons across a year along the majestic reaches of the St. Lawrence River.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TICKETS
 
CLEVELAND
Cleveland Cinémathèque
July 18, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Directed by Robert Bresson, France/Sweeden, 1966
French with English subtitles

A donkey named after one of the Three Wise Men is the passive center of Robert Bresson’s unique parable of suffering and transcendence. Voted 16th best movie of all time in an international poll of critics and filmmakers conducted by Britain’s Sight and Sound magazine in 2012.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Cleveland Cinémathèque
July 25, 2015 | 6:50 pm
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, France/ Italy, 1972
English & French with English subtitles (No one under 18 admitted)

A guilt-ridden and grief-stricken American expatriate (Marlon Brando) enters into a carnal, “no questions asked” relationship with a young French woman (Maria Schneider) whom he meets by chance one day. This notorious, controversial classic is also a stunning piece of cinema, shot by the great Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now). 

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Cleveland Cinémathèque
August 23, 2015 | 6:30 pm
Directed by Roman Polanski, France/United Kingdom, 1979

Winner of three Academy Awards, Roman Polanski’s film version of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is one of his most beautiful and delicate works. 17-year-old Nastassja Kinski plays a peasant girl in late 19th-century England who finds herself victimized by her “cousin” and later trapped by Victorian social conventions. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Cleveland Cinémathèque
August 27, 2015 | 6:45 pm
Directed by Patrice Chereau, France/Germany/Italy, 1994
French & Italian with English subtitles

New 4K Digital Restoration! Original, Uncut Version!

Based on a novel by Alexandre Dumas, Patrice Chéreau’s rip-roaring Queen Margot about sexual power plays, poisoning, beheadings, and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre,  are all depicted with gleeful gusto in this deluxe drama, set during the 16th century, about Catholics and Protestant Huguenots wrestling for control of France. Winner of 5 César Awards.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
COLUMBUS
Wexner Center for the Arts
July 24 - 25, 2015
Directed by Eric Rohmer, France, 1992

This new HD restoration of Eric Rohmer’s miraculous A Tale of Winter shows why he is unsurpassed at creating intelligent romantic comedies and female characters—and features one of the most fascinating in Rohmer’s distinguished line of heroines.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
DETROIT
Detroit Film Center
July 17 - 19, 2015
Directed by Maxime Giroux, Canada, 2014
French, Yiddish, Englishn & Hebrew with English subtitles

Félix and Meira is the tale of an unconventional romance between two people living vastly different realities mere blocks away from one another. What starts as an innocent friendship becomes more serious as Meira’s eyes are opened to the world outside of her Orthodox community. Young director Maxime Giroux’s film is a poignant tale of self-discovery Winner, Best Canadian Feature Film, 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Detroit Film Center
July 25, 2015 | 4:00
Directed by René Clément, France, 1952
French with English subtitles

A timeless evocation of childhood innocence corrupted, Forbidden Games tells the story of a young girl orphaned by WWII and the farm boy she joins in a fantastical world of macabre play which received the Foreign Language Film Academy Award in 1952.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Detroit Film Center
Aug 14, 2015 - 7:00 pm
Directed by Eugène Green, Italy/France, 2014
French and Italian with English subtitles

This elegant, near-transcendent work is a miraculous blend of visual joys and spiritual rebirth – a cinematic experience every bit as bracing and rejuvenating as the revelations that, moment by moment, take hold of its characters and change them forever.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
GRAND RAPIDS
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
July 17 - 30, 2015
Directed by Bertrand Bonello, France, 2014
French with English subtitles
French with English subtitles

The film centers on Yves Saint Laurent's life from 1967 to 1976, during which time the famed fashion designer was at the peak of his career. Nominated for 9 Cannes Festival Awards & 8 César Awards.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
August 14 - 27, 2015
Directed by Xavier Nolan, Canada, 2013
French with English subtitles

Enfant terrible writer/director/actor Xavier Dolan (I KILLED MY MOTHER, MOMMY) spins a gothic tale steeped in lethal homoerotic attraction in this tense story based on a play by Michel Marc Bouchard.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
MADISON
Madison Cinémathèque
July 17, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Directed by William Klein, France, 1969
English and French with English subtitles

Hysterically satirizing US foreign policy with candy-colored comic book style, Klein’s giddy and ferocious political cartoon is now more relevant than ever.  French New Wave siren Delphine Seyrig, decked out in a bright red afro, costars as an ironically sexy double-agent, and the surreal supporting cast includes Donald Pleasance, Serge Gainsbourg, and Yves Montand.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Madison Cinémathèque
July 22, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Directed by Eric Rohmer, France, 1996
French with English subtitles

Part of the New French Restorations series.

This memorable outing from the nouvelle vague master is filled with sly humor, slow-burning eroticism, and timeless behavioral insight about an awkward young man on holiday in sun-kissed Britanny who unexpectedly has the attention of three beautiful women.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Madison Cinémathèque
July 29, 2015 | 7:00 pm
Directed by Max Ophuls, France, 1940
French with English subtitles

Part of the New French Restorations series.

Shot and released in France just before it fell to the Nazis, this sumptuous and tragic historical romance was Ophüls’ last picture before he came to Hollywood.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
MINNEAPOLIS
Through August 29, 2015
Walker Art Center - Minneapolis

A collection of films—which includes works rarely viewed alongside one another—lends another perspective to the major exhibition International Pop by examining cinema as an extension of pop practice around the world. Including films by Jean Luc-Godard, Guy Debord, Alain Resnais, René Viénet and Niki de Saint Phalle.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
OMAHA
Film Streams
July 31 - Aug 24, 2015
Directed by Eric Rohmer

Beginning in 1990, French New Wave master Éric Rohmer, then in his 70s, directed four romantic fancies, each set in a different season. Like the rest of Rohmer’s canon, they are brilliant, beautiful, truthful, and unhurried. A TALE OF SPRINGTIME, the inaugural installment in the quadrilogy, follows two new flatmates who quickly become entangled in each other’s personal lives. In A WINTER’S TALE, a young woman finds herself pregnant after a vacation fling and dreams of finding her onetime lover again. On an idyllic Brittany holiday, a young man must choose between three beautiful young women in A SUMMER’S TALE. AUTUMN TALE is the sweet story of two romantics who try to play matchmaker for their lifelong best friend.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
TRAVERSE CITY
July 28 - Aug 2, 2015
Traverse City, MI

Founded by Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore, the Traverse City Film Festival brings films and filmmakers from around the world to Northern Michigann including 20 long and short features from France or co-produced by France.

FRENCH FILMS PROGRAM AT THE FESTIVAL
 
French Culture
IN THIS ISSUE
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM
 
FRENCH CINEMA IN THE MIDWEST
 
CHICAGO
 
CLEVELAND
 
COLUMBUS
 
DETROIT
 
GRAND RAPIDS
 
MADISON
 
MINNEAPOLIS
 
OMAHA
 
TRAVERSE CITY
 
 

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Consulat Général de France
205 North Michigan Avenue
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