By Travis Johnson
It’s time to bone up on your gendered nouns – the 28th Alliance Française French Film Festival is just around the corner, bringing the best Gallic cinema has to offer with it.
Kicking off in Sydney from March 7, the Festival will travel to six more cities across the nation, presenting some 45 films from such filmmakers as Emmanuelle Bercot, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Nicole Garcia, Benoît Jacquot and Mia Hansen-Løve, to Philippe Lioret, Martin Provost, Jérôme Salle, Bertrand Tavernier and Roschdy Zem, starring the likes of Daniel Auteuil, Nathalie Baye, Bérénice Béjo, Juliette Binoche, Dany Boon, Vincent Cassel, Marion Cotillard, François Cluzet, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Catherine Frot, Louis Garrel, Sandrine Kiberlain, Mélanie Laurent, Virginie Ledoyen, Noémie Lvovsky, Fabrice Luchini, Benoît Poelvoorde, Léa Seydoux, Emmanuelle Seigner, Omar Sy and Gaspard Ulliel.
We’re also getting treated to seven debut features, including Guillaume Senez’s Keeper, Sacha Wolff’s Mercenary, and Stéphanie di Giusto’s The Dancer. Plus, in a blow for the French motto of egalitie, 17 of the films come from female directors. Your move, AACTA.
Program highlights include It’s Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde), by Xavier Dolan; Things to Come (L’avenir) starring Isabelle Huppert; Planetarium, from writer/director Rebecca Zlotowski in which Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp portray sisters surviving as mediums in 1930s Paris; The Odyssey (L’Odyssée), starring Lambert Wilson and Audrey Tautou as famed oceanic adventurers Jacques-Yves and Simone Cousteau; director Anne Fontaine’s haunting 1940s drama The Innocents (Les Innocentes) and The Dancer (La Danseuse), the story of Loïe Fuller, the toast of the Folies Bergères and embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement.
The 2017 Alliance Française French Film Festival
Sydney: 7-30 March Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona, Chauvel
Cinema & Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace
Melbourne: 8-30 March Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth, The Kino Cinemas & The Astor Theatre
Canberra: 9 March – 4 April Palace Electric Cinema
Perth: 15 March – 5 April Cinema Paradiso, Luna on SX & Windsor Cinema
Brisbane: 16 March – 9 April Palace Barracks & Palace Centro
Adelaide: 30 March – 23 April Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas
Hobart: 30 March – 8 April State Cinema
Parramatta: 6-9 April Riverside Theatre
Casula: 8-9 April Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre
For more info, head to the official site.
