News!

After many years of "bloggering", the RPL Staff Picks Blog will be moving to the RVAlibrary.org website during #NationalLibraryWeek (April 9th-15th). We'll be on break this week while we make the switch so go ask Mayor Stoney what he recommends you read next when he visits Broad Rock this Sunday to kick off our week-long celebration!

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!)

Author talk @ RPL: Excerpt from Dr. Harry M. Ward's Children of the Streets of Richmond, 1865-1920

Dr. Harry M. Ward will be discussing his latest book, Children of the Streets of Richmond, 1865-1920, at the Main Library on Monday, September 14th at 6 pm. Call 804-646-7223 to RSVP! 

The following excerpt from chapter one comes from a reporter's 1896 description of his tour of Richmond's "neglected region". 

As I read the following text I wondered about the impression our visitors will take away from their experiences on the very same streets of Richmond during the upcoming UCI Championships, almost 120 years later-- Quite a different scene to be sure. 

(The reported "vile spot" teeming with "brazen women", "cheap drinks, cheap theatres, and cheap lodging" is approximately the area of the 17th Street Farmer's Market.)

Ya know...this lovely place. 

Excerpt from Chapter 1:

From Children of the Streets of Richmond, 1865–1920 ©

2015 Harry M. Ward by permission of McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC

28640. www.mcfarlandpub.com.