VIVE LA FRANCE

Booking Ref

Premieres, Previews & New Releases

Institute Français, in partnership with the Chichester International Film Festival, proudly present five new French films unreleased as yet in the UK.

Preview ANAÏS IN LOVE

Fri 12 Aug 21:00 – Auditorium Sat 13 Aug 15:45 – Auditorium LES AMOURS D’ANAÏS

Anaïs is 30, broke and has a lover she doesn’t think she loves anymore. She meets Daniel, who falls for her, but he lives with Emilie – whom Anaïs also falls for! Behind on rent and considering breaking up with her boyfriend, Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier) doesn’t quite know what she wants from life. She wanders aimlessly – a free spirit with no sense of direction but capable of drawing attention wherever she goes. In comes Daniel (Denis Podalydès), an older publisher married to novelist Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) who takes a shine to Anaïs. Daniel explains to Anaïs how his relationship with Emilie began in an almost identical way to how their affair started. Anaïs becomes less enamoured with the sketchy older man and instead finds herself falling for Emilie. There is something unexpected about the way ‘Anaïs in Love’ pulls you in. Some movies just feel like spring; this is certainly one. A bright breezy romance bursting with energy. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 CHARLINE BOURGEOISTACQUET 98M

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Sun 14 Aug 13:15 – Studio Mon 15 Aug 18:00 – Studio Preview FRANCE

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life overturned by a freak car accident. Paris, today. France de Meurs (Léa Seydoux) is a star journalist running between a television set, a distant war and the hustle and bustle of her busy family life. Her frantic high-profile world is suddenly turned upside down after a traffic accident in which she injures a pedestrian. This unexpected intrusion of reality calls everything into question. As France attempts to slow down and retreat into a simple anonymous life, her fame continues to pursue her until a mystified love affair seems to put an end to her quest. With Blanche Gardin and Benjamin Biolay. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 BRUNO DUMONT 132M

Sun 14 Aug 21:15 – Auditorium Tue 23 Aug 10:30 – Auditorium

Tue 16 Aug 15:30 – Studio

Tue 16 Aug 21:00 – Auditorium Preview HER WAY

UNE FEMME DU MONDE

Marie worked as a sex worker for 20 years. Toensure her son’s future, Marie wants to payfor his studies. She needs money, quickly. Marie (Laure Calamy), an independent and militant woman, has never needed anyone’s help. When her son is expelled from class, Marie cannot accept it. Dreaming of a brighter future for him, she decides to enrol him in one of the best cooking schools in France. But her income does not allow her to pay the school fees. This is an unflinching and generally positive portrait of someone doing their best in difficult circumstances. The French title literally translates to ‘A Woman of the World’. Worldly it is, and more. (Subtitles) FRANCE/BELGIUM 2021 CÉCILE DUCROCQ 97M

Preview GOOD MOTHER

BONNE MERE

A portrait of a courageous mother, but also of a family, neighbourhood, and more generally, of Marseilles. Nora, a cleaning lady in her fifties is worried about her grandson who has been in prison awaiting trial. This is an instantly involving portrait of a woman diligently holding together several generations, firmly establishing actor turned writer/ director Hafsia Herzi as a significant French filmmaker. Anchored by non-pro Halima Benhamed in the lead, the film’s alwaysconvincing narrative is a seemingly effortless example of diversity and women in front of and behind the camera. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 HAFSIA HERZI 97M

Preview TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD

LES CONFINS DU MONDE

The backdrop may be 1945 Indochina rather than 1969 Vietnam, but “Apocalypse Eventually” would be an apt alternative title. French soldier Robert Tassen, (the late Gaspard Ulliel), is the only survivor of a massacre where his brother perished, so he engages in a secret quest to find the assassins. But his meeting with Maï will change his beliefs. The film finds a robust cinematic language for its philosophical wanderings, with ravishing jungle vistas practically causing sweat on the screen. Co-stars Gérard Depardieu. FRANCE 2018 GUILLAUME NICLOUX 103M

Booking Ref

Wed 17 Aug 12:30 – Auditorium Fri 26 Aug 11:00 – Auditorium

Booking Ref

Tue 16 Aug 13:15 – Studio

Booking Ref

Thu 18 Aug 20:30 – Studio Sat 27 Aug 18:00 – Studio New Release ROBUST

An aging and disenchanted film star (Gérard Depardieu) gets a new assistant in the form of young female security officer Aïssa. Larger than life in all conceivable ways, Depardieu can be a disruptive, unsteadying presence in films which fail to cater to the fact that he brings generous helping of Depardieu to any role he plays. Constance Meyer’s highly enjoyable Cannes Critics’ Week opener not only takes this on board, it runs with it, casting Depardieu as George, an ageing French actor with a tendency to crash motorbikes and to embark on drunken misadventures. The film’s secret weapon, however, is Déborah Lukumuena, supremely assured as Aïssa, the temporary security guard with whom George forges a grudging friendship. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 CONSTANCE MEYER 95M

Preview EUGÉNIE GRANDET

Superb adaptation of the novel by Honoré de Balzac. Originally shown as part of last year’s French Film Festival on Tour. Felix Grandet (Olivier Gourmet) reigns supreme in his modest house where his wife and daughter Eugénie lead a distractionfree existence. Extremely avaricious, he does not take a favourable view of the beautiful parties who rush to ask for his daughter’s hand. The sudden visit of Grandet’s nephew, an idle and bankrupt Parisian dandy, awakens the tender soul of Eugénie who instantly falls in love with him. Gourmet excels as a miserly capitalist who enslaves his freedom-seeking daughter in this sumptuous costume adaptation. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 MARC DUGAIN 103M NB Another superb Balzac adaptation ‘Lost Illusion’s is being shown on Mon 22 Aug 18:00 & Tue 23 Aug 12:30.

Preview MAGNETIC BEATS

LES MAGNÉTIQUES

A teenager is called up for military service and drafted to West Berlin. There is a rebellious DIY energy in the 80s which seeps into everything from rock music, to publishing, to pirate radio. It is this latter which provides an outlet for brothers Philippe (Thimotée Robart) and Jerome (Joseph Olivennes), an escape from their provincial backwater in Brittany. Inventively glitchy sound design and a well-chosen soundtrack bring a distinctive personality to a film which combines a coming-of-age story, a love triangle and a persuasive sense of time and place. With fine charismatic young actors in the central roles – Olivennes is the son of Kristin Scott Thomas. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2022 VINCENT MAËL CARDONA 98M

Mon 22 Aug 21:00 – Auditorium Sun 21 Aug 15:30 – Auditorium

Fri 26 Aug 20:45 – Auditorium Sat 27 Aug 13:30 – Auditorium

Preview BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE

Aka: Fire Claire Denis’s latest film stars Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lindon and Grégoire Colin, who complete a turbulent romantic triangle in this intensely intimate examination of the rupturing force of a past love. Sara (Binoche) and Jean (Lindon) are ten years into a loving relationship. She hosts a popular radio current affairs show, while he has been slow finding his feet after a decade in prison. But Jean is stable and supportive, even if he struggles to find the time and attention needed by his mother Nelly (beloved screen veteran Bulle Ogier) in the outer suburb of Vitry where he grew up. On her way into work one day, Sara experiences an emotional wallop when she sees her former partner François (Colin) on a motorcycle. The sense of love dissolving, and lives thrown into chaos as a dormant past violently breaks through the surface is unexpectedly moving, more so because of the film’s rejection of sentimentality. Considering that it starts with images that toy knowingly with schmaltz, the heavy blow of the conclusion is quietly devastating. Tremendous! (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 CLAIRE DENIS 117M

NOBODY’S HERO

VIENS JE T’EMMÈNE

Alain Guiraudie’s latest feature centres on a weak-willed white man caught between being an ally and an oppressor to a homeless Muslim youth in his neighbourhood. As far-right sentiment surges in France – and lawmakers continue to concern themselves with hijab bans – the time is urgently right for artists to challenge the country’s enduring history of Islamophobia. ‘Nobody’s Hero’ seems like a useful contribution in that regard. Set amid the tense aftermath of a radical terrorist attack in the placid central French city of Clermont Ferrand, Guiraudie’s film wryly comments on a middle-class society that oscillates between liberal altruism and wary prejudice. This setup is combined by a separate narrative detailing the same protagonist’s troubled romance with a married local sex worker: Both a bedroom farce and vital political satire. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2022 ALAIN GUIRAUDIE 100M

Mon 22 Aug 18:00 – Auditorium Tue 23 Aug 12:30 – Auditorium UK Premiere LOST ILLUSIONS

ILLUSIONS PERDUES

The story of the rise and the fall of a young man in Paris who dreamed of being a writer and became a journalist. ‘Lost Illusions’ is for many critics the best Balzac novel, and this superb adaptation is a costume epic, dynamic and very well interpreted. It also has a special resonance in our world controlled by social networks, search for buzz, influencers, fake news and a few rich media owners. However, it takes place around 1820-1830 during the period of “Restoration”, when monarchy came back to power in France but also when the liberals were pushing for changing the regime. Lucien de Rubempré (Benjamin Voisin) is a young man full of dreams who comes from the French countryside, eager to live from his literary talents, driven by his forbidden love to a rich aristocrat. Little by little Lucien will lose his illusions to discover a world full of greed, Machiavellianism and dishonesty. With its stellar performances (even Gerard Depardieu has a small role as a publisher), dramatic orchestral score and rich costume and set design, ‘Illusions Perdues’ is a sweeping narrative of love, lust and literary ambition. Not to be missed. (Subtitles) FRANCE 2021 XAVIER GIANNOLI 150M We thank Gaumont for this screening. NB Another superb Balzac adaptation ‘Eugénie Grandet’ is being shown on Thu 18 Aug 13:00

EIFFEL (OPENING GALA)

Wed 10 Aug 18:30 See Opening Gala on Pg6 for full details ALAIN RESNAIS CENTENARY – 3 FILMS

See Resnais section on Pg46 for full details JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO REMEMBERED – 8 FILMS

See Belmondo section on Pg64 for full details