From Script to Screen: Conversations on Contemporary French Cinema brings to Stanford debates and currents in contemporary French cinema through screenings and dialogue. Our guests are drawn from the most distinguished film makers, screen writers, critics and actors in the French cinema scene. We hope that these events, open to the public and coordinated with other Bay Area film venues like the Pacific Film Archive and the San Francisco International Film Festival, will foster conversations among cinema fans and specialists both within and outside the university. Now in its third year, the festival has drawn standing-room-only audiences from all over the Bay Area. See our previous events.

Events 2005-2006

NEW FEATURE! Post your questions for the May 9 interview with actress Elodie Bouchez at the French Film Festival blog: http://frenchfilmfestival.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, May 9 and Thursday, May 11, 2006
Two screenings and conversations on films by Abdel Kechiche
Events are in Cubberley Auditorium (School of Education). View map. The films are in French with English subtitles. Discussion will be in English.

**UPDATE: The dates of the screenings have been switched due to a scheduling conflict with our invited guests. Poetical Refugee is now on May 9, with special guests Elodie Bouchez and Jean-Michel Frodon. Games of Love and Chance is on May 11.**

• May 9th: screening and discussions of La Faute à Voltaire (Poetical Refugee – 2000) with actress Elodie Bouchez and Jean-Michel Frodon, Editor in Chief of Cahiers du cinema

  5 p.m.: Interview: Elodie Bouchez and Jean-Michel Frodon

  6 p.m.: Film screening followed by discussion with Bouchez and Frodon
  

Synopsis: Winner of the Golden Lion for first feature at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, La Faute à Voltaire aka Poetical Refugee is the story of Jallel, a Tunisian immigrant in Paris. Claiming to be a refugee from war-torn Algeria in order to get political asylum, his life in the country of 'liberty, equality and fraternity' is one of homeless shelters, illegal jobs and emotionally complex sexual relationships.

But director Abdel Kechiche refuses to portray Jallel as either hapless victim or angry rebel. Instead, he focuses on Jallel's interpersonal relationships with his new community, an eclectic group of unemployed French and second-generation immigrants struggling to survive. Here, it is the wounded who heal the wounded, and Jallel, in spite of his own traumas, becomes a healing force for the emotionally troubled women whose lives intermingle with his.

With superb performances by Sami Bouajila (Leo, in the Company of Men, shown at the festival last year), Aure Atika (Tenja, The Beat that My Heart Skipped) and Elodie Bouchez (The Dream Life of Angels, TV series Alias), Poetical Refugee offers a tender portrayal of life on the margins.

Cast: with Elodie Bouchez, Sami Bouajila

• May 11th: screening and discussion of L'Esquive (Games of Love and Chance – 2003)

  6 p.m.: Film screening followed by a discussion with Stanford professor Cécile Alduy

Synopsis: This award-winning tale of love and friendship recasts the famous 18th-century play Games of Love and Chance by Marivaux in a present-day French outer-city ghetto. As a group of high school students rehearse the play for a school performance, they also struggle with their own words backstage – in the housing project – to discover their own conflicted feelings of amorous rivalry and class identity. The brilliant juxtaposition of ghetto slang and aristocratic language also known as "marivaudage" reveals behind the burning actuality of ghetto violence and exclusion in a universal coming-of-age and love story.

In a sweeping victory, Games of Love and Chance upset A Very Long Engagement and The Chorus at the 2005 César Awards, taking home Best Film, Best Director, Best Female Newcomer and Best Screenplay awards.

Cast: Sara Forestier, Osman Elkharraz, Sabrina Ouazani.

4 César awards in 2005, including best film and best scenario.

 

Previous events in this spring's series:

Tuesday, April 18 and Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Two screenings of films by director Claire Denis

**LATE UPDATE: Claire Denis has canceled her appearances. L'Intrus and Beau Travail will be screened as scheduled, free and open to the public.**

6 p.m., Cubberley Auditorium (School of Education). View map. The films are in French with English subtitles.

One of the great living directors of contemporary French cinema, director Claire Denis is an innovative filmmaker internationally recognized for her fearless investigation of the human condition. Her debut feature film Chocolat (1988), a meditation on colonialism, won her critical acclaim. With films such as Nenette and Boni, Trouble Every Day and Friday Night, Claire Denis has developed a unique cinematic aesthetic. The highly praised Beau Travail is considered by many to be her masterpiece. She also served as assistant to Jacques Rivette, Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders.

• April 18th: screening of Claire Denis's latest film, L'Intrus (The Intruder – 2004), based on a book by philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, preceded by a short film on Nancy titled "Vers Nancy."

  Synopsis: Louis Trebor (Michel Subor) lives alone in an isolated woodland compound on the French-Swiss border in the Jura mountains. An enigmatic figure and emotionally distant father, he has little contact with the grown-up son who lives in the same town, seemingly preferring his dogs to the company of men. An ailing heart forces Trebor to leave his snow-covered wilderness to embark on a journey in search of new heart – literally and metaphorically – on the black market of Korea. As he drifts across the Pacific Ocean, he is also secretly looking for a long-lost son he fathered years before, on a remote island near Tahiti.
  
  Cast: Michel Subor, Gregoire Colin, Béatrice Dalle

• April 19th: screening of Beau Travail (Good Work – 1999)

  Synopsis: Inspired by Herman Melville's "Billy Budd," Beau Travail is one the most provocative and accomplished films by French director Claire Denis (Chocolat, I Can't Sleep, Nenette and Boni). This simple tale of pride and rivalry is drenched with male eroticism and cast in the form of a languorous tropical dream. Set against the stunning East African enclave of Djibouti, Beau Travail follows a troupe of men in a small French Foreign Legion outpost. Exercising their muscular torsos under the blaring sun, each day the Legionnaires engage in a hypnotically choreographed routine of drills, chores, and mock battles. Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) runs the troupe like a well-oiled machine, until his jealousy of a promising young recruit, Sentaine (Gregoire Colin), threatens the delicate balance of his life. With the haunting suspense of a Greek tragedy, Galoup's uncontrollable urge to destroy Sentaine ultimately leads to his own downfall.

  Cast: Denis Lavant, Gregoire Colin, Michel Subor

 

Past Events

• Cécile Alduy is assistant professor of French.
• Margaret Cohen is professor of French.
• Marie-Pierre Ulloa is a visiting scholar in history.

Poster for The Intruder

Béatrice Dalle as the Queen of the Northern Hemisphere (Ognon Pictures)

Claire Denis (Ognon Pictures)

La Faute à Voltaire


La Faute à Voltaire

La Faute à Voltaire

Cécile Alduy, organizer

Margaret Cohen, co-founder