Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival

Press Release: Tuesday 29^th October

Twelve days of French style, glamour and cinematic sophistication at the Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival from 20^th November – 1^st December 2013

This year’s Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival programme brings a mesmerising collection of French film to Dublin. The twelve days of Gallic opulence at the Festival includes 21 premieres of the best new French films, director’s seasons, a classic film selection, some stunning directorial debuts, the winner of the 2013 Cannes Palme d’Or Blue is the Warmest Colour, which will be accompanied by a special programme celebrating the work of its director Abdellatif Kechiche.

The festival also includes a fantastic line up of special guests presenting and discussing their work including actress Emmanuelle Devos and directors Jérôme Bonnell, Emmanuelle Bercot, John Lalor, Nicolas Philibert (director of 2002 international hit Être et Avoir) and visionary filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin whose work will be celebrated with a special focus and who will also lead a masterclass.

Festival Director Marie-Pierre Richard said ‘The search for identity is the unifying theme in this year’s Festival, explored through many exciting and unique voices in French cinema.’

The Gala Opening film, telling the story of an intriguing brief encounter, is Just a Sigh. A Parisian actress Alix (a luminous Emmanuelle Devos) makes an unexpected connection with an English-speaking stranger (Gabriel Byrne). The screening of this wonderful portrait of a woman on a day when destiny takes hold will include a Q+A with Festival guests, actress Emmanuelle Devos and director Jérôme Bonnell, and will be followed by a reception.

Arnaud Desplechin’s cinema is warm, generous, at times volatile, burlesque and audacious. His new film Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) sees Benicio Del Toro as Jimmy Picard, a Blackfoot Indian hospitalised in Kansas suffering from war-time trauma. Desplechin will take part in a post-screening Q&A and will also take part in a Q+A after 2008’s A Christmas Tale, part of a focus on his career to date at the IFI running throughout November.

Blue is the Warmest Colour was awarded this year’s Palme d’Or in a unanimous decision from the jury and, unusually, the prestigious prize was jointly awarded to Tunisian-French director Abdellatif Kechiche and the two stars of the film Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. The unanimity very quickly fell away as this intense lesbian love story has proved fiercely controversial since; it’s sure to be one of the unmissable cinema releases of 2013. Kechiche’s full body of work that includesCouscous and Blame it on Voltaire is recognised with a special programme running at the IFI throughout November.

Festival guest, documentary maker Nicolas Philibert, shot to fame in 2002 with Être et Avoir, his stunning evocation of a small rural French school. With La Maison de la radio he returns with his acclaimed unobtrusive by playful style, this time taking his camera through the iconic corridors of state broadcasting company Radio France. Philibert will discuss La Maison de la radio in a post screening Q&A.

Another undoubted documentary highlight is The Last of the Unjust, Claude Lanzmann’s astonishing documentary that focuses on a series of interviews Lanzmann conducted in 1975 with Benjamin Murmelstein, a contentious figure who was tried and acquitted for Nazi collaboration due to his role as an ‘elder of the Jews’ at Thereseinstadt Ghetto/Concentration Camp.

This year’s Festival’s Classic Film Programme features Jacques Demy’s tender and lyricalLola(1961), here presented on a delicately restored new print. The programme also featuresDocumenteur, a piercingly melancholic ‘emotion picture’ about the end of a relationship, by Demy’s widow and key French filmmaker Agnès Varda. Shown alongside Documenteur is Incident urbain, a short film set outside the French National Library in Paris from France-based Irish artist John Lalor who will discuss working at the intersection of art and cinema with artist Garrett Phelan after the screening.

Directors whose work has been presented regularly at the festival include Francois Ozon withJeune & Jolie, and Xavier Dolan with Tom at the Farm, while familiar on-screen faces can be found throughout the festival such as Catherine Deneuve in On My Way (which will be followed with a Q&A with director Emmanuelle Bercot), Audrey Tatou in Chinese Puzzle, and Tahar Rahim and Léa Seydoux in Grand Central.

Those with children aged 7+ will adore the animated adaptation of the selling-book of the same name My Mommy is in America and she met Buffalo Bill, set in the 1970s it’s a sparkling and thought-proving tale about childhood loss and hiding from the truth.

This is just a sample of the diverse and exciting Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival programme drawn from Europe’s most important cinema culture. Be sure to pick up a programme at the IFI or explore it online at www.ifi.ie/frenchfest and look out for special menus in the IFI Café Bar and annual membership deals running throughout the Festival.

The IFI acknowledges the financial support of its principle funder, the Arts Council. Additionally the Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival is made possible with the support of Carte Noire, the Embassy of France in Ireland, Air France, the Alliance Française, The Irish Times and The Westbury Hotel.

Tickets are available now in person at the IFI Box Office, by telephone on 01 679 3477 or online at www.ifi.ie

For more media information, images, interview requests (see guests below) please contact Patrick Stewart at the IFI Press Office on 01 679 5744 or email pstewart@irishfilm.ie

Editor’s Notes

Interviews with Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival Guests by appointment with the IFI Press Office (pstewart@irishfilm.ie or 01 679 5744)

Jérôme Bonnell – Director of Just a Sigh

Emmanuelle Bercot – Director of On My Way

Emmanuelle Devos – Actress featured in Just a Sigh, Kings and Queens and Domestic Life

Arnaud Desplechin – Director of Jimmy P (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian), Kings and QueensandA Christmas Tale – see IFI November programme for details of other films

John Lalor – Artist & Director of Incident urbain

Nicolas Philibert – Documentary director of La Maison de la radio (and international hit from 2002Être et Avoir)

Carte Noire IFI French Film Festival Schedule

WED 20

20.00 Opening Film:Just a Sigh

+ Q&A with Jérôme Bonnell and Emmanuelle Devos

Followed by Reception

THURS 21

18.00 Kings and Queen

+ Q&A with Emmanuelle Devos

20.45 Jimmy P (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian)

 + Q&A with Arnaud Desplechin

FRI 22

11.00 ` Masterclass with Arnaud Desplechin

18.00 A Christmas Tale

+ Q&A with Arnaud Desplechin

20.00 Blue is the Warmest Colour

21.10 Domestic Life

SAT 23

14.00 Domestic Life

16.15 Jimmy P (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian)

18.45 Jeune et Jolie

20.45 Chinese Puzzle

SUN 24

11.00 IFI Family: My Mommy is in America and she met Buffalo Bill (with reader)

13.30 Blame It on Voltaire

16.30 Lola

Introduced by Dr. Douglas Smith

18.45 My Blue-Eyed Girl

20.45 Tom at the Farm

MON 25

18.15 Chinese Puzzle

20.45 Suzanne

TUES 26

18.30 On My Way

21.00 2 Autumns, 3 Winters

WED 27

18.30 Me, Myself and Mum (Alliance Française Screening)

20.30 Going Away

THURS 28

16.15 Suzanne

18.30 Going Away

20.45 Me, Myself and Mum

FRI 29

18.30 La Maison de la radio

Followed by Q&A with Nicolas Philibert

20.40 Jappeloup

SAT 30

11.00 My Mommy is in America and she met Buffalo Bill (without reader)

13.00 Documenteur + Incident urbain

Followed by Q+A with John Lalor and Garrett Phelan

16.00 On My Way

Followed by Q+A with Emmanuelle Bercot

18.00 Les Apaches

20.30 Camille Claudel 1915

SUN 1

12.00 The Last of the Unjust 

Introduced by Dr Joseph Cohen

16.10 Jappeloup

18.45 The Enclosure of Time + Wheels and Reels

20.45 Grand Central

The IFI acknowledge the support of the Arts Council.

-Ends-