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OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2014
 
French Cinema in the Midwest
 
 
FESTIVALS
Nov 13 - 23, 2014
Saint Louis, MO

Each November throngs of cinema fans gather for the annual conclave that is the St. Louis International Film Festival. The 2014 edition is monumental in scope and diversity with many French/French language films including the newly restored Alain Resnais’s French New Wave classic Hiroshima, Mon Amour, one of the most beautiful and influential movies ever made and a tribute to pioner filmaker Alice Guy-Blaché the first woman to direct a motion picture

Supported by the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago

FOR MORE INFORMATION
 
WWI CENTENNIAL
Until Nov 25, 2014
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago

The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago presents a series of eleven American and French films commemorating the centennial of the First World War. More consistently and durably than the films of any other war, the best World War I films have been committed to addressing the appalling human costs of modern warfare. This series includes the French films J'accuse, Grand Illusion, Jules et Jim, and La France.

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Until Dec 4, 2014
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In this series curated by Lilya Kaganovsky, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presents a selection of films to commemorate the centennial of the beguining of World War I. Each film screening will have a brief introduction and conclude with a post-screening discussion. The series includes the French films: La Grande Illusion and Joyeux Noël.

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Until Dec 5, 2014
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Notre Dame University - Saint Louis

The Nanovic Institute and the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame present a thematic film series focused on The Great War on Film. Each screening in the series will have a twenty-minute introductory presentation by a filmmaker or scholar. This series includes the French films J'accuse, Grand Illusion, A Very long Engagement, and Joyeux Noël.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Until November 29, 2014
Cleveland Cinematheque

The Cleveland Cinematheque presents a serie of films on WW1 including the French films La Chambre Verte and The Officer's Ward.

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Until Dec 13, 2014
Indiana University - Bloomington

As Indiana University in Bloomington marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, this multi-semester film series explores the conditions leading up to war, the harsh realities of wartime, and its effects on people and nations around the world. The series includes the French films: A Very Long Engagement, Capitaine Conan, La Grande Illusion and Joyeux Noël.

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Nov 22, 2014
Wisconsin Cinematheque - Madison

In commemoration of the centennial, the University of Wisconsin Cinematheque has selected a series of memorable international features that artfully depict this gruesome conflict in styles ranging from the absurdly comic (a program of How I Won the War and Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms) to the stirringly epic (Gance’s J’Accuse and King Vidor’s The Big Parade).

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Nov 12-13, 2014
Webster University

The Centre Francophone at Webster University in Saint Louis presents two French films to commemorate the WW1 Centenial: Le siècle de Verdun and Les tirailleurs sénégalais.

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In the framework of the centennial of World War I, the above screenings of French films are supported by the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago, the Institut Français and the Mission du Centenaire 14-18 in Paris.

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SERIES
Until Nov 23, 2014
Gene Siskel Film Center - Chicago

The Gene Siskel Film Center presents En Garde for the Environment, three environmental documentaries by award-winning author, television journalist, and documentary filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin. The daughter of French farmers, Robin has covered a wide range of sensitive subjects in her distinguished career, from war and political torture to the French secret service, but it is her hard-hitting her trilogy of THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO, OUR DAILY POISON, and CROPS OF THE FUTURE that has spotlighted her as one of the film world’s foremost environmental crusaders.

Supported by the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France and the Institut français.

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Until May 20, 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 some on Saturday afternoons. Also new: a live stand-up comic to warm up the room before selected screenings. Take a break from your Netflix subscription, your smart phone and leave your iPad at home... and come at the Alliance to watch French comedies!

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Until Dec 5, 2014
Block Cinema
Northwestern University

2014 marks the centennial of Henri Langlois, one of the most important figures in the history of cinema. Langlois was a co-founder, director and curator of the Cinémathèque Française, one of the world’s most important and celebrated film archives. Throughout Langlois’ 40-year career, he was responsible for saving countless films, whether from destruction by the Nazis or from decay due to indifference and neglect. Block Cinema pays homage to Langlois through an eclectic selection of works showcasing many of the films and filmmakers he championed.

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

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Oct 24 - Dec 5, 2014
Cinemathéque
University of Wisconsin at Madison

Premiere Showcase is the Cinematheque’s effort to bring the boldest and most exciting new cinema back to the big screen. Premiere Showcase presents exciting new work by contem­porary directors that would otherwise have no theatrical venue in the area. Fall 2014 premiere selections include the ultra-creepy French thriller The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears and Life of Riley.

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NEW RELEASES
Directed by Mathieu Amalric
Release date: September 29, 2014

A man and a woman, secretly in love, alone in a room. They desire each other, want each other, even bite each other. Now the man is under investigation by the police. What happened? What is he accused of?

Dec 5-11: Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago IL

Trailer

FOR MIDWEST SCREENINGS
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
US release date: Oct 15, 2014

As the Allies march toward Paris in the summer of 1944, Hitler gives orders that the French capital should not fall into enemy hands, or if it does, then only ‘as a field of rubble’. However, at dawn on 25 August, Swedish Consul General Raoul Nordling steals into German headquarters and thus starts a tension-filled game of cat and mouse as Nordling tries to persuade Choltitz to abandon his plan.

Now playing: Edina Cinema, Minneapolis MN
Nov 14 – 20: Music Box Theatre, Chicago IL
Nov 14-16, 22-23: Detroit Institute of Art, MI
Nov 15 – 17 : St. Louis International Film Festival

Trailer

FOR MIDWEST SCREENINGS
Directed by Manu Payet & Rodolphe Lauga
US release date: Oct 17, 2014

Ben, aged 30, is about to marry Juliette. But his quiet little life will be turned on its head when he runs into the person whom he secretly wanted to see more than anyone: Vanessa, the high-school sex bomb who never gave him a second glance. She’s back in Paris now, and he’s the only person she knows...

Trailer

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Directed by Alain Resnais
Release date: October 24, 2014

In the English countryside, the life of three couples is disturbed by a character we shall constantly hear about but never see: the enigmatic George Riley. Not to miss this final film by one of contemporary cinema’s most celebrated masters, the late Alain Resnais!

Nov 20 & 22: Cinema St. Louis/St. Louis International Film Festival, St. Louis  MO 
Dec 5, 2014: Cinemathèque at University of Wisconsin - Madison WI 

Trailer

FOR MIDWEST SCREENINGS
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Release date: October 29, 2014

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Goodbye to Language, Jean-Luc Godard's latest film is a "thrilling cinematic experience".

Nov 11/13: UW-Madison Cinematheque, Madison WI
Nov 14-21: Indiana University /Black Film Center, Bloomington IN
Nov 18-19: Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland OH
Nov 20-2: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus  OH

Trailer

FOR MIDWEST SCREENINGS
Directed by Frederick Wiseman
Release date: November 5th, 2014

A documentary that goes inside one of the great museums of the world: The National Gallery in London.

Nov 21; Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago IL
Nov 28-30: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN
Dec 4: Akron Museum of Art, Akron OH
Dec 12: Reel Massillon, Akron OH
Jan 18: DeBartolo Center, Notre Dame IN
Jan 22: Detroit Film Theater, Detroit MI
Jan 24: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus OH

Trailer

FOR MIDWEST SCREENINGS
 
IN THEATERS
Nov 7 - 20, 2014
Gene Siskel Film Center

The paths of a shy student working as a chambermaid and an AWOL Silicon Valley engineer intersect in a Paris airport hotel, but not in the way of romance. Magic realism and the supernatural come to bear on a unique story in which flight, both metaphorical and real, provides soaring release and makes way for tentative steps into the future.

Trailer

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Nov 13, 2014 | 6:45 pm
Cleveland Cinematheque

We celebrate the life of this pioneering, idiosyncratic, and controversial cinephile and film preservationist by showing this epic documentary about him. The movie features archival footage and interviews with an all-star cast of Langlois disciples and admirers, including Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Luc Godard, and Agnès Varda.

Trailer

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Nov 14 - 22, 2014
Walker Art Center

A hopeless police inspector and his comical sidekick (with the effect of a modern day Laurel and Hardy) take up an unconventional and provocative search for a missing body, while being menaced by the story’s central figure—a little mischief-maker named Li’l Quinquin.

Trailer

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Nov 15-16, 2014
Cleveland Cinematheque

The sexy, stylish, lurid Italian crime thrillers (gialli) made by Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and others during the 1960s and 1970s are paid lush, lavish tribute in this violent, virtuosic new film from the makers of Amer. Favoring baroque high style over plot and narrative, this account of a missing wife explores that mystery via a series of gorgeous, sinister set pieces full of leather gloves, black lace, soft flesh, and sharp objects.

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Nov 20-21, 2014
Cleveland Cinematheque

Louis Garrel stars in the new film by his post-New Wave auteur father, Philippe. He plays an actor who leaves his wife and young daughter and shacks up with his thespian girlfriend. This sets in motion a multifaceted drama of jealousy, poverty, love, temptation, and betrayal about “boho Parisians facing the ends of marriages, affairs, and the feasibility of bohemian existence itself” (Village Voice ).

Trailer

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Nov 22-23, 2014
Cleveland Cinematheque

Isabelle Huppert stars in the semi-autobiographical new film by longtime feminist and provocateur Catherine Breillat. This new move from the director of Romance, Fat Girl, and Bluebeard focuses on a mature female filmmaker who suffers a stroke and then, during recovery, succumbs to the charms of a criminal whom she has hired to star in her next film. (He swindles her out of a lot of money.)

Trailer

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Nov 28 - Dec 3, 2014
Gene Siskel Film Center

When a magical Maltec idol and an archaeologist’s daughter (the lovely, short-lived Dorléac) are snatched from a Paris museum by Brazil-bound thugs, her soldier-on leave boyfriend (Belmondo, performing many of his own stunts) sets off in hot pursuit.

Trailer

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Nov 24, 2014 | 7:00 pm
Max Palevsky Cinema

Alain Berliner’s first feature, "Ma vie en rose" is the story of Ludovic, a 7-year-old boy certain of only two things—he should have been born a girl, and the error is sure to be corrected. This belief sets him at odds with classmates and neighbors in his conservative, middle class suburb.

Trailer

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Dec 5, 2014 | 7:00 pm
Wexner Center for the Arts

In this film set during WWII in the scenic, snowy Alps near the Swiss border of occupied France, a resourceful young boy named Sebastian tames a giant mountain sheepdog that he names Belle. The dog becomes the boy’s best friend and protector.

Trailer

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REVIVALS
Directed by Alain Resnais | Written by Marguerite Duras
US release date: October 17, 2014

A new restoration of one of the classics of cinema, Hiroshima Mon Amour depicts a brief affair between a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) in the rebuilt and thriving Hiroshima of 1959.  The couple's bliss is slowly eroded by the unavoidable memories of the war and atomic mass destruction.

See it in theaters

Trailer

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Directed by Marcel Carné | Written by Jacques Viot & Jacques Prévert
US release date: November 14, 2014

A factory worker (Jean Gabin) reflects on the circumstances of love, rivalry, and betrayal that have led to his dire standoff in a police dragnet. This new restoration will be the first time audiences can see the complete version, including censored footage removed by the Vichy government during the World War 2 occupation of France.

Trailer

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Dec 19 - 27, 2014
Detroit Film Theater

Based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, the wildly satirical restored French ClassicThe King and the Mockingbird follows a chimney sweep and shepherdess on the run from a tyrannical king. A masterpiece of traditional hand-drawn cell animation, The King and the Mockingbird 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.

Trailer

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ALLIANCES FRANÇAISES

Each year, 500,000 people, of all ages, attend Alliances Françaises to learn French and more than 6 million people worldwide attend their cultural activities. Be one of them so check out your local Alliance Française for their French and Francophone films program.

TO FIND AN AF NEAR YOU
 
French Culture
IN THIS ISSUE
FESTIVALS
 
WWI CENTENNIAL
 
SERIES
 
NEW RELEASES
 
IN THEATERS
 
REVIVALS
 
ALLIANCES FRANÇAISES
 
 
 
 

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