November 16th-27th 2016
IFI French Film Festival www.ifi.ie
IFI French Film Festival November 16th-27th 2016 IFI Principal Funder
Festival Sponsors
Sponsors
DUBLIN
Booking Information Packages: €40 for 5 films. €70 for 10 films. Both packages exclude the opening film. Loyalty: Get your free loyalty card from box office and earn points every time you spend at the IFI. Free list suspended for IFI French Film Festival.
2 IFI French Film Festival 2016
Membership: is required for all films. Daily membership costs €1.50 and annual membership just €35. Annual Membership entitles the bearer to discounts on screenings, free preview screenings of selected films throughout the year, one complimentary ticket and a host of other benefits. Box Office 01 679 3477 www.ifi.ie/frenchfest
6 Eustace St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
@IFI_Dub #IFIFrenchFest
facebook.com/irishfilminstitute @irishfilminstitute Festival Director: Marie-Pierre Richard Programme Notes: Marie-Pierre Richard (MPR) David O’Mahony (DOM) Alicia McGivern (AM)
design: verso.ie
Tickets: cost €10.50 each, except for the opening film which includes a post-screening reception (€15).
Cover It’s Only the End of the World by director Xavier Dolan
Partners
Schedule WED 16 OPENING FILM
WED 23
20.00 In Bed with Victoria (Victoria)
18.00
Being 17 (Quand on a 17 ans)
20.30
Slack Bay (Ma Loute)
Followed by Reception
THURS 17 18.10 20.30
The Innocents (Les Innocents) The Stopover (Voir du pays)
FRI 18 16.00 The Son of Joseph (Le Fils de Joseph) 18.20 Saint Amour 20.30 Mercenary (Mercenaire)
SAT 19
THURS 24 16.00 18.00 18.10 20.10
Saint Amour Harry, He’s Here to Help (Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien) + intro by Dominik Moll and Gilles Marchand In Bed with Victoria (Victoria) News from Planet Mars (Des nouvelles de la planète Mars) + Q&A with Dominik Moll and Gilles Marchand
FRI 25
13.30 The Stopover (Voir du pays) 13.40 A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme) + intro by Dr Douglas Smith 15.40 Frantz 18.00 Being 17 (Quand on a 17 ans) 20.30 It’s Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde)
SUN 20 13.00 Tomorrow (Demain) 15.20 Tour de France 17.20 Corniche Kennedy + Q&A with Lola Créton 20.00 Cézanne and I (Cézanne et moi)
16.00 Mercenary (Mercenaire) 18.15 The Unknown Girl (La Fille inconnue) 20.30 Into the Forest (Dans la forêt) + Q&A with Gilles Marchand and Dominik Moll
SAT 26 13.00 A Journey through French Cinema (Voyage à travers le cinéma français) 13.20 Miss Impossible (Jamais contente) 15.20 The Stopover (Voir du pays) 17.30 Frantz 20.00 Journey to Greenland (Le Voyage au Groenland) + Q&A with Sébastien Betbeder
SUN 27 MON 21 18.10 20.30
The Son of Joseph (Le Fils de Joseph) Tour de France
TUES 22 18.20 20.30
It’s Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde) Saint Amour
13.30 14.00 15.30 17.30 19.50
Casque d’or Marie and the Misfits (Marie et les naufragés) + intro by Sébastien Betbeder Tour de France The Death of Louis XIV (La Mort de Louis XIV) 21 Nights with Pattie (21 nuits avec Pattie)
www.ifi.ie/frenchfest 3
In Bed with Victoria (Victoria)
Gala Opening Wednesday November 16th, 20.00 Thursday November 24th, 18.10 Director: Justine Triet 98 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Opening film, Critics’ Week, Cannes Film Festival 2016
Criminal lawyer Victoria Spick (Virginie Efira) tries to juggle life, career, children and a chaotic love life in this lively comedy drama. At a wedding she catches up with former friend Vincent (Melvil Poupaud) and runs into Sam (Vincent Lacoste), a former drug dealer she once defended, who is now looking to be her intern. The following day Vincent is accused of attempting to murder his girlfriend. Reluctantly Victoria agrees to defend him and, hiring Sam as an au-pair Victoria finds herself caught in a further spiral of emotional and professional chaos. (MPR) director’s note: The effervescent, sparkling Virginie Efira stands out as Victoria in this graceful, tender and vibrant romantic comedy.
The Innocents (les innocents)
Poland, 1945: a community of Benedictine nuns is the target for systematic abuse at the hands of the occupying Russian forces in this assured period piece by Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel). French Red Cross worker and former resistance fighter Mathilde Beaulieu (Lou de Laâge) becomes embroiled in a tragedy when she uncovers a group of nuns in an advanced state of pregnancy; compelled to action, she must contend with the hierarchies of power within the convent, who will stop at nothing to avoid the shame such a scandal could bring. (DOM) Thursday November 17th, 18.10 Director: Anne Fontaine 115 mins • France/Poland • 2016 • Digital Sundance Film Festival 2016; BFI London Film Festival 2016
4 IFI French Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Faith and friendship amongst women drives this sensitive and deeply moving historical drama.
The Stopover (Voir du pays)
Aurore (Ariane Labed) and Marine (singer-actress Soko), childhood friends and now military comrades, are dispatched with their platoon on a three-day course of ‘decompression’ to a gleaming Cyprus spa resort following a gruelling tour of duty in Afghanistan. Wild nights spent partying are juxtaposed with sober virtual realityaided group therapy sessions that expose barely-supressed tensions and anxieties. This bracing second feature from the Coulin sisters examines the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome and shines welcome light on the psyche of women in the military. (DOM) Thursday November 17th, 20.30 Saturday November 19th, 13.30 Saturday November 26th, 15.20 Directors: Delphine & Muriel Coulin 102 mins • France / Greece • 2016 • Digital Winner: Best Screenplay, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival 2016
director’s note: A chilling reflection on military violence and its profound effects on the psyche.
The Son of Joseph (Le fils de Joseph)
Parisian teenager Vincent’s (Victor Ezenfis) quest to track down his absentee father – a pompous literary publisher played by Mathieu Amalric – is the backbone to Eugène Green’s (The Portuguese Nun) stylish and eccentric new film that weaves emotional depth, surrealism and moments of bedroom farce to winning effect. Laden with symbolism from both the Old and New Testaments, with sly references to Caravaggio’s masterpiece The Sacrifice of Isaac, The Son of Joseph is presented in a deliberately formal, artificial style that belies its depth of feeling for Vincent’s dilemma. (DOM) Friday November 18th, 16.00 Monday November 21st, 18.10 Director: Eugène Green 115 mins • France/Belgium • 2016, Digital Official Selection, Berlin Film Festival 2016; BFI London Film Festival 2016
director’s note: A teenager’s desperate search for his father is told through stunning formalist cinematic language.
Saint Amour Widowed cattle farmer Jean (Gérard Depardieu) and his winesoaked son Bruno (Benoît Poelvoorde) – who boasts of being drunk at least twice a week for the past 25 years – take to the road on a ramshackle tour of France’s wine-growing regions à la Alexander Payne’s Sideways in writer-directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern’s (Louise-Michel; Mammuth) enjoyably lopsided picaresque comedy. The directors’ trademark streak of deadpan absurdity is evidenced, but is offset by clear affection for their characters. Watch out for an unlikely cameo from acclaimed writer Michel Houellebecq. (DOM) Friday November 18th, 18.20 Tuesday November 22nd, 20.30 Thursday November 24th, 16.00 Directors: Benoît Delépine & Gustave Kervern 101 mins, France / Belgium, 2016, Digital Official Selection, Berlin Film Festival 2016 Sponsored by Airbus
director’s note: A hilarious, tender and sentimental road-trip with father and son (Depardieu-Poelvoorde) taking an epic wine tour of France.
www.ifi.ie 5 www.ifi.ie/frenchfest
Mercenary (Mercenaire)
In Sacha Wolff’s gritty debut, Soane, a nineteen-year-old Pacific Islander (a powerfully convincing Toki Pilioko) grabs an opportunity to leave his idyllic yet abusive home environment in New Caledonia for France when he is offered a professional rugby contract. In France, the fish-out-of-water Soane must contend with shady managers who expect him to use performance-enhancing drugs and train with racist teammates, convinced he is Maori and goading him to perform the Haka. His tenuous position however is further endangered as his past comes back to haunt him. (DOM) Friday November 18th, 20.30 Friday November 25th, 16.00 Director: Sacha Wolff 103 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Winner: Europa Cinemas Label, Cannes Film Festival 2016; Main Competition, BFI London Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Sacha Wolff’s feature début is a masterful tale of money and freedom, a portrait of our time.
Frantz A haunting elegy set in the aftermath of WWI, Frantz is another successful change of pace for the prolific François Ozon. Mourning the death of her fiancé Frantz, Anna (Paula Beer) stays with his grieving parents in their idyllic German village until one day she comes across the mysterious Adrien (Pierre Niney), who claims to be Frantz’s long-time friend from Paris leaving flowers on his grave. Accepting Adrien as the only living connection to her fiancé, Anna begins to develop feelings for this striking Frenchman who may not be all that he seems. (DOM) Saturday November 19th, 15.40 Saturday November 26th, 17.30 Director: François Ozon 113 mins • France/Germany • 2016 • Digital • B+W Main Competition, Venice Film Festival 2016; Main Competition, BFI London Film Festival 2016; Special Presentation, Toronto International Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Visual refinement, rigorous structure and editing further extend Ozon’s breadth of work in this intensely moving period piece.
Being 17
(Quand on a 17 ans)
Saturday November 19th, 18.00 Wednesday November 23rd, 18.00 Director: André Téchiné 116 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Official Selection, Berlin Film Festival 2016; BFI London Film Festival 2016 6 IFI French Film Festival 2016
Teenagers Damian (Kacey Mottet Klein) and Thomas (Corentin Fila) share a simmering enmity that frequently erupts into violent confrontation. Interceding as peacemaker, Damian’s mother Marianne (Sandrine Kiberlain) arranges with Thomas’ adoptive parents – farmers high in the Pyrenees – for the boys to live with her for a few months in the village at the foothills, entirely unaware of the underlying causes of their animosity. Being 17 sees veteran director André Téchiné and his co-writer Celine Sciamma (Girlhood) revisit themes of same-sex desire previously explored in his classic Les Roseaux sauvages (The Wild Reeds). (DOM) director’s note: All the confusion of first love comes flooding out in this precisely observed, naturalistic portrait of youth.
It’s Only The End of The World (Juste la fin du monde)
Saturday November 19th, 20.30 Tuesday November 22nd, 18.20 Director: Xavier Dolan 97 mins • Canada / France • 2016 • Digital Winner: Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival 2016
Louis (Gaspard Ulliel), a terminally ill writer, returns home to his estranged family after an absence of more than a decade, prompting a series of confrontations, revelations and internecine squabbling in Xavier Dolan’s adaptation of Jean-Luc Lagarce’s acclaimed stage play. Filmed in his signature heightened style, and working with an accomplished cast – Marion Cotillard, Nathalie Baye, Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel – Dolan’s sixth feature is as melodramatic as we have come to expect from the young Canadian, but there is also a newfound maturity and restraint to his approach. (DOM) director’s note: Words and images in disarray fight each other, cancel each other out to flare up again, mirroring a dysfunctional family in complete chaos.
Tomorrow (Demain)
Sunday November 20th, 13.00 Directors: Cyril Dion/Mélanie Laurent 118 mins • France • 2015 • Digital Winner: Best Documentary, César Awards 2016 In association with VIEW 2016 Festival
This César-winning documentary inspires and gives hope through its solution-focused approach to the economic, social and ecological crises facing the planet. Actor/director Mélanie Laurent, ecologist activist Cyril Dion and a small crew globetrot in search of projects aimed at bringing about change in how we live, consume and engage with the world. Across ten countries, they meet pioneers in agriculture, economics, education and energy, people working to improve their communities and make a difference. (AM) There will be a post-screening discussion with Peadar Kirby, academic, writer and a director of Cloughjordan Ecovillage; Kate Ruddock, Friends of the Earth; Mindy O Brien, Voice Ireland and Graham Barnes, Trustee/Director of Feasta. director’s note: Exhilarating, inspiring and radical ways to live in harmony with others and our planet, are introduced to us with high-energy optimism.
Tour de France Hip-hop artist Far’hook (rapper Sadek in his first film role) has insulted a rival rapper and is a target for retaliation; with the biggest concert of his career on the horizon, his producer dispatches him to stay with his curmudgeonly father Serge (Gérard Depardieu) until the heat dies down. Reluctantly Far’hook agrees to chauffeur the grumpy, racist Serge – an artist without a driver’s licence – around the countryside so he can recreate the paintings of 18th Century artist Claude Joseph Vernet. Sadek and Depardieu are an engagingly mismatched double act in this lively comedy. (DOM) Sunday November 20th, 15.20 Monday November 21st, 20.30 Sunday November 27th, 15.30 Director: Rachid Djaïdani 95 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival 2016
director’s note: The implausible odd couple of Sadek and Depardieu, loose-flowing narrative and hyper-saturated cinematography generate a storm of energy.
www.ifi.ie/frenchfest 7
Corniche Kennedy It’s summer in picturesque Corniche Kennedy, a well-off neighbourhood in Marseille, where a group of disaffected late teens have adopted the sea cliffs as their haunt. With a clear blue sky backdrop they somersault and dive their way through the summer. Marco, a slender, matt-skinned figure is a driver for a drug gang, while blond-haired, child-like Mehdi cares for his mother and imprisoned brother. Then, following an initiation rite, Suzanne (the luminous Lola Créton), a middle class girl, comes between them… (MPR) Actress Lola Créton will partake in a post-screening Q&A. Sunday November 20th, 17.20 Director: Dominique Cabrera 90 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Opening film, FIDMarseille 2016
director’s note: This is an exhilarating sun-kissed experience, a poetic account set against the ruggedness of nature, in equal measures beautiful and dangerous.
Cézanne and I (Cézanne et moi)
The turbulent, life-long friendship between painter Paul Cézanne (Guillaume Gallienne, Me, Myself and Mum) and writer Émile Zola (Guillaume Canet, Tell No One) is brought to the screen in Danièle Thompson’s well-appointed period drama. Thompson begins her story as Cézanne and Zola clash over the latter’s new novel, L’Oeuvre, whose protagonist is an ambitious yet failed painter, then flashes back in time to recount how the two artists met as boys in Aix-enProvence before exploding onto the Paris art scene of the Belle Époque. (DOM) Sunday November 20th, 20.00 Director: Danièle Thompson 116 mins • France • 2016 • Digital
director’s note: The friendship that unites Cézanne and Zola – two of France’s cultural icons – since childhood is examined in this highly polished period drama.
Slack Bay (Ma Loute)
Wednesday November 23rd, 20.30 Director: Bruno Dumont 122 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Main Competition, Cannes Film Festival 2016; Melbourne International Film Festival 2016
8 IFI French Film Festival 2016
A rogue’s gallery of grotesques populate the titular stretch of coastline in director Bruno Dumont’s hilarious follow-up to P’tit Quinquin, which screened at the 2014 IFI French Film Festival. Bourgeois couple André and Isabella Van Peteghem (Fabrice Luchini and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) are holidaying with Isabella’s flamboyant sister Aude (Juliette Binoche) when a series of suspicious disappearances bring them into conflict with local peasant fishermen. With its outrageous humour and cartoonish visuals, Slack Bay sees Dumont continue to distance himself from the austere naturalism he is known for. (DOM) director’s note: In the land of Flemish painting, Dumont shapes burlesque humour through bold characters, images, costumes and sounds, distorting each to comic effect.
News from Planet Mars (Des nouvelles de la planète Mars)
Thursday November 24th, 20.10 Director: Dominik Moll 101 mins • France/Belgium • 2016 • Digital Out of Competition, Berlin Film Festival 2016
A respectable, middle-aged divorcé dad, Philippe Mars (François Damiens) wants to please everyone. Outwardly, his life appears intact while inwardly, he is in turmoil. His busy TV journalist ex-wife has entrusted him with caring for their sanctimonious children, a compulsive seventeen-year-old daughter driven by success, and a thirteen-year-old son who after his first crush becomes a hardcore vegetarian. His snooty artist sister doesn’t help much either. Philippe’s life spins out of its planned orbit when Jérôme (Vincent Macaigne), a bizarre and unhinged colleague, takes up residence in his apartment. (MPR) Director Dominik Moll and writer Gilles Marchand will partake in a post-screening Q&A. director’s note: With a meticulous edge of black humour this is a hilarious, and genuinely touching portrait of a man tumbling into the absurd.
The Unknown Girl (La fille inconnue)
A young doctor’s guilt compels her to action in the Dardenne brothers’ (Two Days, One Night) latest humanist drama, filmed in their signature social realist style. The day after she refuses an after-hours patient entry to her surgery, Jenny (Adèle Haenel) learns that the unidentified African woman has been found dead nearby. Determined to uncover the circumstances around the case, Jenny begins a potentially dangerous investigation into the woman’s background. A gripping procedural, The Unknown Girl asks pertinent questions about personal and social responsibility. (DOM) Friday November 25th, 18.15 Director: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne 106 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Main Competition, Cannes Film Festival 2016; Main Competition, BFI London Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Structured like a procedural investigation the Dardennes scrutinise guilt and innocence in this meticulously built moral drama.
Into the Forest (Dans la forêt)
Friday November 25th, 20.30 Director: Gilles Marchand 103 mins • France/Sweden • 2016 • Digital Main Competition, Locarno International Film Festival 2016; Main Competition, BFI London Film Festival 2016
Young brothers Tom and Benjamin travel to Sweden to spend their vacation with their estranged father (Jérémie Elkaïm), who they have barely seen since their parents divorced. Tom, the younger of the two, has a premonition that something bad will happen. Their strange and solitary father is unable to sleep. He insists that Tom, like him, has a gift for feeling things which aren’t quite normal. Tom’s frightening visions set the stage for the bizarre and terrifying events to follow, when the three head to a house in a vast remote forest. (MPR) Director Gilles Marchand and writer Dominik Moll will partake in a post-screening Q&A. director’s note: Gilles Marchand delivers an enthralling, subtle film, leaving us with no final resolution and many unanswered questions. www.ifi.ie/frenchfest 9
A Journey through French Cinema (Voyage à travers le cinéma français)
A revered filmmaker and life-long fan of cinema, Tavernier addresses the camera directly to speak about the films he loves, characterising cinema as ‘a collective art’. Directors, screenwriters, actors and producers, the pioneering use of music, and composers in French cinema, the list is exhaustive – Renoir, Truffaut, Godard, Marcel Carné, Jean Duvivier, Jean Vigo, Edmond T. Gréville, Jean-Pierre Melville, and more... Dedicated to Jacques Becker and Claude Sautet this fascinating documentary is filled with rare footage and interviews. (MPR) Saturday November 26th, 13.00 Director: Bertrand Tavernier 190 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Cannes Classics Selection, Cannes Film Festival 2016; BFI London Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Watching French cinema from the 1930s to the 1970s through Bertrand Tavernier’s eyes is a thrilling and evocative experience.
Miss Impossible (Jamais contente)
Winner of this year’s European Young Audience Award, this fresh coming-of-age drama centres on thirteen-year-old Aurore, trying to find her way between a beautiful older sister and a brainy younger one. Newcomer Léna Magnien excels as the prickly teen, full of smart answers and inconstant personality traits. Her parents threaten boarding school, but an empathetic teacher and an offer to join a band give her new possibilities. The band’s friendship helps her open up, realise her own talent and create an opportunity for her family to see her in a different light. (AM) Saturday November 26th, 13.20 Director: Emilie Deleuze 90 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Winner: European Film Academy Young Audience Award 2016; Official Selection, Berlin Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Miss Impossible is a heartfelt look at finding one’s place in the world. Rebellious, awkward, thrilling!
Journey to Greenland (Le voyage au Groenland)
Saturday November 26th, 20.00 Director: Sébastien Betbeder 98 mins • France • 2016 • Digital ACID Selection, Cannes Film Festival 2016
10 IFI French Film Festival 2016
Thomas (Thomas Blanchard) and Thomas (Thomas Scimeca), two less-than-successful actors, leave Paris on a whim for the frozen wilderness of Greenland – specifically the remote town of Kullorsuaq where one of their father’s happens to live – in Sébastien Betbeder’s contemplative comedy of self-discovery. Air-dropped into an Inuit community, the boys discover the charms of the local customs, while the stresses of their imposing new environment puts their friendship to the test. Journey to Greenland continues Betbeder’s fascination with the continent of Greenland following the IFI French Film Festival screening of Inupiluk in 2014. (MPR) Director Sébastien Betbeder will partake in a post-screening Q&A. director’s note: Primarily a melancholy comedy, the characters travel and, through displacement, their moods and bittersweet dreams are unearthed.
Marie and the Misfits (Marie et les naufragés)
Sunday November 27th, 14.00 Director: Sébastien Betbeder 104 mins • France • 2016 • Digital Official Competition, Moscow International Film Festival 2016
The alluring young Marie (Vimala Pons) breaks up with Antoine (Eric Cantona), a writer lacking in inspiration, preferring to let fate decide her future. Jobless journalist Siméon (Pierre Rochefort), finds Marie’s wallet in the street and in attempting to contact her meets Antoine who warns him of the danger of getting involved with Marie. Despite this, Siméon persists and embarks on a journey to an island in Brittany. In a reference to Alain Resnais, characters talk directly to camera, while the narrative is constantly diverted by chance encounters with people of seemingly peripheral importance. (MPR) Director Sébastien Betbeder will introduce this screening. director’s note: A novelistic, hugely inventive skewed love triangle, layering narratives between fiction and literature, always full of surprises.
The Death of Louis Xiv (La mort de Louis Xiv)
August 1715, Louis XIV suffers an embolism kick-starting gangrene and resulting in confinement to his Versailles bedroom until his demise that September. Preparing for death and in constant pain, the king is surrounded by courtiers, ministers, relatives, doctors and close advisors. Working from the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon and those of the Marquis de Dangeau, Serra describes with great precision the sordid details of the king’s last days, giving us history on a human scale: the ordinary, intimate, agony of death. (MPR) Sunday November 27th, 17.30 Director: Albert Serra 115 mins • France/Portugal/Spain • 2016 • Digital Prix Jean Vigo: Cannes Film Festival 2016; Official Selection, BFI London Film Festival 2016; Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival 2016
director’s note: Legendary actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, though barely speaking, embodies the Sun King in Serra’s peerless account of the slow agony and death of Louis XIV.
21 Nights with Pattie (21 nuits avec Pattie)
Sunday November 27th, 19.50 Directors: Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu 110 mins • France • 2015 • Digital Winner: Best Screenplay, San Sebastian International Film Festival 2015; Official Selection, BFI London Film Festival 2015
The Larrieu brothers’ new comedy is a delightfully witty game where death and desire are intertwined. Caroline (Isabelle Carré), an uptight Parisian in her 40s, arrives in an idyllic mountain village in southwest France hoping to deal quickly with the funeral arrangements for her estranged mother, known to locals as ‘Zaza’. First she encounters the insatiable Pattie (a formidable Karin Viard), who loves to share the saucy details of her epic sexual exploits. When Zaza’s body disappears, Caroline soon meets her mother’s colourful entourage, and bizarre explanations and intrigue unfold. (MPR) director’s note: With a superb cast, this exuberant rural sexcomedy is alive with suggestive eroticism, vividly described in words but never shown.
www.ifi.ie 11 www.ifi.ie/frenchfest 11
CLASSIC PROGRAMME
We are delighted to present three films of unique cinematic style: the restored version of A Man and a Woman (Palme d’Or winner, Cannes 1966), on the occasion of its 60th Anniversary, and featuring in Bertrand Tavernier’s superb documentary (A Journey Through French Cinema, see page 10), Casque d’or, one of the gems of post-war French cinema; and modern classic Harry, He’s Here to Help, directed by festival guest Dominik Moll.
A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme)
Saturday November 19th, 13.40 Director: Claude Lelouch 102 mins • France • 1966 • Restored Digital Version Colour and B&W Palme d’Or: Cannes Film Festival 1966; Best Foreign Language Film and Best Writing: Academy Awards 1967; Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Motion Picture Actress: Golden Globes 1967
He (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a racing driver, she (Anouk Aimée) works in film. Both widowed parents, they meet at their children’s school. They move at different speeds, literally (he takes the car, she takes the train) and metaphorically (she is still grieving for her lost husband, he is seeking to move on). Lelouch invents a striking visual style to render their fluctuating relationship, combining hand-held camera work with telephoto lenses. Thanks to its seductive fusion of immediacy and stylisation, the film was a massive success both in France and abroad. (Douglas Smith) Dr Douglas Smith, Senior Lecturer, School of Languages and Literature, UCD, will introduce this screening.
Harry, He’s Here to Help (Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien)
Thursday November 24th, 18.00 Director: Dominik Moll 117 mins • France • 2000 • 35mm Main Competition, Cannes Film Festival 2000
Middle class couple Michel (Laurent Lucas) and Claire (Mathilde Seigner) are en route to their dilapidated holiday home with their three daughters. Stopping at a petrol station, Michel is approached by Harry (Sergei López), who insists to Michel’s bemusement that they were old school friends. Offering to lend a hand with the holiday home renovations, Harry begins to insinuate himself into their lives in increasingly sinister fashion. Reminiscent of the thrillers of Hitchcock and Claude Chabrol, Dominik Moll’s blackly comic exercise in sustained tension is approaching the status of a modern classic. (DOM) Director Dominik Moll and writer Gilles Marchand will introduce this screening.
Casque d’or Set in the criminal underworld of Belle Époque Paris, Jacques Becker’s glorious tragic melodrama, one of the great French films of the 1950s is ready to be rediscovered. Marie (Simone Signoret) is nicknamed Casque d’Or – helmet of gold – by her gangster lover Roland thanks to her distinctive coiffure. The story unfolds in an open-air dancehall on the banks of the Marne where Marie meets and falls hopelessly in love with handsome stranger George (Serge Reggiani), much to Roland’s chagrin. Their clandestine affair triggers a rivalry that descends into treachery and murder. (DOM) Sunday November 27th, 13.30 Director: Jacques Becker 94 mins • France • 1952 • Digital Best Actress: BAFTA Awards, 1953 12 IFI French Film Festival 2016
The IFI would like to thank Christine Houard at l’Institut Français.
festival Guests
Sébastien Betbeder
Gilles Marchand
Sébastien Betbeder is a screenwriter and director whose films include Cloud (2007), Nights with Théodore (2012), which received the FIPRESCI prize at the San Francisco Film Festival, and 2 Autumns, 3 Winters (2013) which won the jury award at Turin. His Jean Vigo prize-winning Inupiluk screened at the 2014 IFI French Film Festival and he is here to present Journey to Greenland (page 10), which screened at Cannes this year, and Marie and the Misfits (page 11), starring Eric Cantona and Emmanuelle Riva.
Gilles Marchand began his career as a screenwriter on Laurent Cantet’s Les Sanguinaires (1997) and as a director of several short films. He was co-writer with Laurent Cantet on Human Resources (1999) and with Dominik Moll on both Harry, He’s Here to Help (2000), which screened at Cannes and won them both a César for Best Screenplay, and News From Planet Mars (2016) (page 9), which he is here to present along with his film Into The Forest (2016) (page 9), which he also wrote with Dominik Moll.
Lola Créton
Dominik Moll
Lola Créton has been acting since the age of ten and has, since then, appeared in a number of acclaimed films including Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard (2009), Claire Denis’ Bastards (2013), Mia Hansen-Løve’s Goodbye First Love (2011) and Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air (2012). She is attending this year’s festival to present Dominique Cabrera’s Corniche Kennedy (2016) (page 8), an adaptation of Maylis de Kerangal’s novel of the same name.
Dominik Moll is a German-born French director and screenwriter. He has made a number of highly successful films including, with Gilles Marchand, Lemming (2005), starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Rampling, and The Monk (2011), based on the novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis. We are delighted to welcome him to present Harry, He’s Here to Help (2000) (page 12), for which he won the César Award for Best Director, News From Planet Mars (2016) (page 9) and Into The Forest (2016) (page 9), which he co-wrote with Gilles Marchand.
www.ifi.ie/frenchfest 13
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The International Building Materials Group www.crh.com
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The Westin Dublin is a luxurious 5-star hotel located in the heart of Dublin city centre, directly opposite Trinity College Dublin and a short stroll to Grafton Street. Behind the historic 19th century façade of the hotel, are 172 spacious guest rooms and suites each featuring a signature Westin Heavenly Bed®. Unique dining options include the Atrium Lounge, home to the legendary Most Peculiar Afternoon Tea, while the Mint Bar is one of the city’s leading cocktail bars and nestles in the atmospheric old bank vaults. The Banking Hall is an iconic destination venue with its own private entrance on College Street and its historic setting positions it as the premiere venue for a conference, event or gala banquet in Dublin. Experience a warm welcome at the Westin Dublin. College Green, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. T +353.(0)1.645.1000 W www.thewestindublin.com
SIT BACK, RELAX
AND ENJOY YOUR FILM Air France is delighted to once again sponsor the French Film Festival of the Irish Film Institute. Air France oers an extensive long-haul network on departure from Dublin. Fly via our state-of-the-art hub, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and experience seamless connections to destinations worldwide. For more information and to book your next ight, visit airfrance.ie
Complete your Festival experiences with some great French food and wine at the IFI Café Bar. Don’t forget you can reserve your table during the Festival by calling 01 679 8712 / cafebar@irishfilm.ie
I F I F R E NCH F E ST I VA L ME N U
Rhône Wine Week October 29th – November 5th 2016
Two course special only €17.95
TO S TART French Onion Soup with a Gruyere Crouton Moules Marinières with Crusty Bread
Join us to celebrate the wines of the Rhône Valley www.RhoneWineWeekIreland.com
Breaded Wedge of French Brie with a Forest Berry Compote
M A IN CO U RSE Beef Bourgignon with Celeriac and Carrot Mash Navarin d’Agneau
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Coq au Vin with Gratin Potato Wild Mushroom Frikassée with Risi-Bisi
DE S S E RT S Fondant Chocolat Framboise Roulade
FE ST I VA L F RE N CH WI N E S White: Les Jamelles Viognier 24.95 Red: Les Jamelles Cabernet Sauvignon 24.95 Rosé: Les Jamelles Cinsault 24.50
a n a ly s e exPlore connect seduce
10 French Film Festivals 200 international Festivals 80 masterclasses 1st online worldwide French Film Festival 370 French talents on tour 10 Biggest international markets 1st international Buyers & medias rendez-vous in Paris Based in Paris, new york, tokyo, Beijing & seoul www.uniFrance.org
CULTUREFOX.IE
NEVER MISS OUT The Arts Council’s new, upgraded CULTUREFOX events guide is now live. Free, faster, easy to use – and personalised for you. Never miss out again.