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French Film Festival returns with focus on thrills, laughs and animation
Courtesy IFICineastes take note: The French Film Festival is back for its 19th edition, planning to screen 11 feature films and 15 shorts from Dec
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Courtesy IFI
Cineastes take note: The French Film Festival is back for its 19th edition, planning to screen 11 feature films and 15 shorts from Dec. 4 to Dec. 7, followed by fringe events through the month, in nine cities in the archipelago.
'We want to show the diversity and variety of the current French film production,' says Arnaud Miquel, French Institute of Indonesia (IFI) audiovisual officer and festival programmer.
The festival, which is organized by IFI, will offer the Indonesian premieres of eight feature-length films in its Panorama section, including the local debuts of the thriller Clouds of Sils Maria, featuring the ever-luminous Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart, and the stylish biopic Grace of Monaco, the 2014 Cannes Film Festival opener, featuring Nicole Kidman.
The festival's opening-night movie, Christophe Gans' Beauty and the Beast, is adapted from the famous fairy tale that also inspired Jean Cocteau to adapt it for the screen in 1946, Miquel said. However, Gans' version 'uses special effects to give an even-more fantastic tone to this universal story about what lay behind appearances.'
Also of note is the fantastic comedy Atilla Marcel, directed by Sylvain Chomet, which tells of a man who lives routine life, playing the piano while his aunts mollycoddle him ' until things change after he tries a neighbor's 'special' tea. 'The movie begins with a very down to earth approach that soon slides into an ironic universe that may, to some extent, reminds us of a male Amélie.'
The festival's delightful closing film Serial (Bad) Weddings is an exploration of what happens to conservative parents who find their four daughters marrying men from different religious or ethnic backgrounds.
'This is the French blockbuster of the year,' Miquel says of Serial (Bad) Weddings, which attracted more than 12 million viewers at home. 'I am curious to see how Indonesians will receive it, since those community issues also have an echo here. It is like a community of concerns for our two countries, which the movie chooses to answer with a final message of tolerance.'
Miquel said that the festival will include an inaugural animation section, featuring a special guest, the Oscar-nominated animator Jacques-Rémy Girerd, who will lead master's classes for local film students in Jakarta and Bandung.
The festival plans to screen several of Girerd's films, including La Prophetie Des Grenouilles (Raining Cats and Frogs) and Mia Et Le Migou (Mia And The Migoo), as well as shorts produced by his Folimage Studio, throughout December at fringe events at the Kineforum at Taman Ismail Marzuki in Cikini, Central Jakarta; and other cities in Indonesia.
One animated film not to miss is Girerd's Une vie de chat (A Cat in Paris), which tells the story of a girl who follows her adventurous cat into a series of misadventures in the Parisian underworld. 'This a really beautiful animated movie, in which you can see a poetic Paris by night,' Miquel said. 'I am sure it will please every member of the family.'
The festival is also running a competition featuring seven Indonesian short filmmakers, each of who will have their works screened before one of the film's Panorama section, according to Miquel. Selected directors include Andra Fembriarto for TOS and Loeloe Hendra for Onomastika. 'The winner will get an invitation and a ticket to attend the Clermont-Ferrand's International Short Film Festival - France's second film festival after Cannes'.
Screenings will be held at Cinema XXI theaters in Jakarta, as well as in Bandung, West Java; Denpasar, Bali; Jombang, Malang, and Surabaya, East Java; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Medan, North Sumatra; and Yogyakarta.
Only about four French films a year get commercial releases in Indonesia, which Miquel attributes to a lack of theaters and distributors wary of European films.
'Actually, last year, we filled Jakarta's theaters during the festival. This is the proof that French cinema can appeal to Indonesia. We wish more of our knowledge could be accessible for Indonesian audiences.'
Films will have English-language dialog or English-language subtitles. For more information, visit festivalsinemaprancis.com.
'The writer is an intern for The Jakarta Post
