We made it!

The 25^th Annual Richmond French Film Festival, co-sponsored by VCU and UR, is upon us and promises to be the best yet!  Not only is the festival occurring over a full week at both the Byrd Theatre and the University of Richmond but there are also special events scattered throughout, such as a live concert by Henry Padovani, one of the founding members of The Police (following a documentary about him) and a special poetry recitation by one of France’s preeminent actors, Philippe Torreton, which closes the festival.  

Padovani pictured center

Jacques Perrin

Other special guests include composer Bruno Coulais and director-producer-actor Jacques Perrin.  They will be presenting symposium lectures as well as introducing and moderating q-and-a sessions for both films they have worked on together and separately. One of these, the Coulais-scored Coraline, was a popular American release in 2010.

Winged Migration, a joint hit for both, was widely shown in the United States (I saw it at the much-missed Westhampton Theatre) but on Friday afternoon it will be shown in its original French release, Le Peuple Migrateur.  As the Festival poster proudly proclaims, 700 films have been screened and 850 members of the French film industry have come to share their experiences with us since the first festival in 1993.  This year’s program includes 8 features, 6 documentaries (3 by Perrin) and 11 short films, plus the first North American showing of the Magic Lantern show from the Cinematheque Francaise.

There are several past Festival selections currently available in our DVD collection, including last year’s The Clearstream Affair.  My favorite drama of all those I have seen is Claude Miller’s (the Honorary Godfather of the Festival who passed away in 2012) Un Secret/A Secret (2008) and my favorite comedy is Le Prenom/What’s in a Name? (2013).  Other notable selections include the children’s film Belle and Sebastian, Gemma Bovery, The Hedgehog (adapted from the Muriel Barbery novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog), Pour une Femme (For a Woman), Renoir, Le nom des gens (The Names of Love), Hors la loi (Outside the Law) and the extraordinary documentary Oceans, yet another outstanding cinematic work by Jacques Perrin!

(Many thanks to Robert Hickman of Westover Hills, our resident French film expert, for this annual update!)

It's time for the French Film Festival!

As the 24th VCU French Film Festival gets underway, I thought you might want to know a bit about the history and impact it has had on the community and world stage.  What began as a labor of love by Drs. Peter and Francoise Kirkpatrick (who were rewarded for their efforts with the title “Chevaliers de L’ordre des Artes et des Lettres,” bestowed upon them by the French Ambassador here in 2004) has grown into the one of the most important film festivals in the world and is considered to be the largest French film festival in the United States, having welcomed over 400 directors, producers, actors, film scholars, critics, and French government officials to attend since its inception.

Though it began near VCU with a small selection of five films which all had U.S. releases, it quickly expanded and transferred to the Byrd, where it has been held since 1996.  The majority of subsequent programming has never been released stateside, so those lucky enough to attend are the only U.S. viewers, except for possibly attendees to other film festivals throughout the country.  This year’s program contains an astounding 15 features, 3 documentaries and 16 short films over the four- day period, including 3 restored silents by legendary directors Gaston Breteau and Georges Melias.  Four master classes will be given as well as a free lead-in to the Thursday start:  a rare showing of the landmark Out 1, a twelve-and-a-half hour film which will be shown over three nights beginning March 28^th at the Grace Street Theatre where it all started back in 1993.  

Other highlights include La Loi du Marche, which has won both Cannes and Cesar (French Oscar) awards for star Vincent Lindon, two films starring Josiane Balasko, a major French actor, director and writer (and mainstay of the Festival, having been represented by 13 of her films, beginning with the very first festival) and the latest installment of the Belle and Sebastian series (The Current Adventures), which features rising star Felix Bossuet and is based on characters created by the popular children’s author Cecile Aubrey.  The latter two actors will be attending the festival and doing question-and-answer sessions after their respective screenings.

Luckily for RPL patrons, there are several past Festival selections currently available in our DVD collection.  My favorite drama of all those I have seen is Claude Miller’s (the Honorary Godfather of the Festival who passed away in 2012) Un Secret /A Secret (2008) and my favorite comedy is Le Prenom/What’s in a Name? (2013), which was adapted from the successful Parisian stage comedy.  The co-writers (also co-directors of the film) were both in attendance and noted that the Richmond audience was the first to see it in the United States.  (It later received a limited release in New York and Los Angeles.)  Other notable selections include The Hedgehog, adapted from the Muriel Barbery novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog and starring Ms. Balasko, Gemma Bovery (a selection from last year’s festival), Pour une Femme (For a Woman), Renoir and the extraordinary documentary Oceans, the latter of which can be watched in an English-dubbed format narrated Pierce Brosnan!

Thanks to Robert for the post this week!

French Films Rule!

The French Film Festival is coming to the Byrd Theatre, March 21-24.  The festival, a four-day screening of 30 French features and shorts, many of them U.S. premiers, is sponsored by the University of Richmond’s Department of Modern Literatures and Cultures and Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of World Studies. Since 2003 it has been acclaimed as the most important French film festival in the United States. For information and tickets, visit http://frenchfilmfestival.us/.  

Robert Hickman, film buff and Library Associate at RPL’s Westover Hills Branch, can’t wait:

“I love French films. I’m more likely to forgive and stay with them until the end, unlike the many U.S. releases I lose patience with after twenty minutes. A friend once remarked, “there’s nothing dumber than reading movies,” but I find that each one is still a new experience, as fresh and exciting as when I first started watching them decades ago. There’s more attention paid to character development, and the slower (European?) pace allows the story to unfold more naturally without a lot of pyrotechnics and other visual gimmickry. They are like small, independent U.S. films, which don’t need an overblown budget and lavish design and often employ the same cast and crew from film to film.

French film lover Robert Hickman

Because of the small size of both the French film industry and France itself, most film workers, studios and distribution companies are based in Paris. With a small number of directors, actors and technicians living in a concentrated area, it is logical that many often work together. This makes faces familiar, but not ubiquitous. Because French actors are not overexposed in the media as actors are in the United States, audience members can focus on the performance rather than the actor giving it.


French films don’t require Hollywood tricks such as the obligatory happy ending. While sometimes very frustrating, it’s also thought-provoking, and often keeps a film in memory long after it’s over. Some French films move more slowly than paint dries, but since I care more about the characters, I give them more leeway than their American counterparts. There is much less violence on the whole. Sex scenes are realistic and integral to the story rather than gratuitous. (There are so many beautiful sex symbols in French cinema history I cannot begin to list them all!)


Because many French film stars’ children and family members go into the business, it often seems like I’m spending time with an extended family, interesting yet not intrusive. It is a lovely way to spend a couple hours, which is also the perfect length for a visit. I only wish I could share the food they’re eating. There are fewer places I’d rather be than sitting in a darkened theatre, lost in a French film.”

Use your library card to enjoy your own French Film Festival at home.  Here are Robert’s ten top picks, all available @your library: 

Rules of the game [DVD] = La règle du jeu	Breathless [DVD] = À bout de souffle	Jules and Jim [DVD] = Jules et Jim	The 400 blows [DVD] = Les Quatre cents coups	Hiroshima mon amour [DVD]
A secret [DVD] = Un secret	Purple noon [DVD] = Plein soleil	Grand illusion [DVD] = La grande illusion	Beauty and the beast [DVD] = Belle et la bête	Summer hours [DVD] = L'heure d'été

French Films at RPL

During November and December, we'll be co-sponsoring the Film for Lunch French Film Series with the James River Film Society. Thursdays at noon, you're invited to enjoy a selection of early French films from five of the most important directors working in France during the late silent and early sound eras. The movies will be shown on the big screen in the auditorium using a 16 mm projector. Films will be in French with English subtitles, and hopefully there will be a lively post-screening discussion of each movie.

Admission is FREE , so pack a lunch and join us in the auditorium of the Main Library on the following Thursdays at 12 pm:

November 4: A Nous la Liberte (Freedom is Ours)

(Dir: Rene Clair, 1931, sound 87 mins.)
A satiric look at capitalism, friendship, and life on the assembly-line, and arguably Clair's best film. The plot has an escaped convict becoming a wealthy industrialist, only to be found out by an ex-prison mate with ultimately both hitting the road as carefree vagabonds. This film is the reputed inspiration for Chaplin's Modern Times.

November 11: L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) & La Coquille et le Clergyman (The Seashell and the Clergyman)

(Dir: Luis Bunuel, 1930, silent, 63 mins.)
(Dir: Germaine Dulac, 1928, silent, 43 mins. )
A surrealist double bill! Bunuel's first film after Un Chien Andalou is a hilarious romp over the tenets of Western Civilization, while Dulac's film is a dream-take on religion and sexual repression.

November 18: L'Atalante (The Atalante)
(Dir: Jean Vigo, 1934, sound, 87 mins.)
One of the loveliest films of the Poetic Realist years and a tale of love's fragility. When a girl from the provices marries a barge captain, her dreams of romance and Paris are grounded by their daily, endless tasks on board. Lyrical and poetic, at times grittily realistic, photographed by Boris Kaufman (Academy winner for On the Waterfront), with the great actor Michel Simon as Pere Jules. New Wave director Frances Truffaut hailed it a masterpiece!

December 2: Zero de Conduite (Zero for Conduct) & Une Partie de Campagne (A Day in the Country)

(Dir: Jean Vigo, 1933, sound, 56 mins.)
(Dir: Jean Renoir, 1936, sound, 44 mins.)
A double feature! Vigo's irreverent fable of student revolt in a boarding school -- the greatest pillow fight of all time! -- has inspired films like If, Rock 'n Roll High School, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Renoir's A Day in the Country is an homage to the Impressionists (of which his father, Pierre August, was one), adapted from two Maupassant stories and not released until 1946 because of the occupation and then the war. A story of unrequited love, set in a quiet country inn (Renoir plays the proprietor), delicately and lovingly told by France's greatest director.