French Film Festival reveals 2016 line-up

The Alliance Française French Film Festival

February 17-April 13, 2016

Celebrating 10 years of bringing the best of French cinema to New Zealand, the Alliance Française French Film Festival, which opens next month, will be showcasing the largest and most diverse selection of French films and television programmes to date.

The festival will be showing in 12 cities across the country, with 37 titles, including a special section of films from the Cannes International Film Festival, Festival patron Antonia Prebble’s personal favourites and a number of international French-language productions.

“I am extremely proud and thrilled about our 2016 line-up,” notes festival director Sébastien Donnadieu, “It illustrates our 10-year history of a daring, innovative, charming and inclusive event, for all ages and tastes.”

The opening night spot will see Julien Rappeneau’s first feature, Rosalie Blum, open the festival in each city, with its international première at the Wellington launch on February 17.

The section 'Le Festival de Cannes en Nouvelle-Zélande' features the New Zealand premières of Palme D’Or winner Dheepan, the extraordinary Valley of Love, starring Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu, Samuel Benchetrit’s bewitching Macadam Stories, Pascale Ferran’s  modern tale Bird People, and the poignant Mon Roi, which earned Emmanuelle Bercot the Best Actress Award at the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival.

Other highlights include Eva Husson’s directorial debut and TIFF sensation Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story),  Piero Messina’s The Wait, starring Juliette Binoche and Lou de Laâge (outstanding in last year’s Breathe), and Michel Gondry’s latest film, Microbe & Gasoline.

Moving into new territory, the line-up will also feature two French television series in the ‘TV Out of the Box’ section. The Studiocanal production, The Last Panthers with a star-studded cast is a crime drama inspired by the notorious Balkan jewel thieves the Pink Panthers. Samantha Morton, Tahar Rahim, Goran Bogdan and John Hurt give affecting performances, and audiences will have a chance to see the first two episodes of season one during the festival. Also in this section is the award-winning historical drama Un Village Français set in the small town of Villeneuve during World War II. Each of the seasons follows one year of the occupation and viewers witness the evolution of main characters and a variety of minor and recurring characters, as they resist, adapt or collaborate to varying degrees with the occupying German forces including a strong Gestapo presence.

The programme includes four titles which have been selected for the festival’s 2016 Education Outreach programme. Designed to engage, educate and inspire student audiences by exposing them to French language in context, the Education Outreach Programme encourages discussion in the classroom through comprehensive study guides, which are provided free on the festival website.

www.frenchfilmfestival.co.nz