IFI French Film Festival 2023

The IFI’s flagship festival, the IFI French Film Festival, returns from November 13th to 24th 2024. See last year's programme below:

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

In the near future, a mysterious condition is causing people to mutate into animals. Lara, wife to chef François (Romain Duris, The Beat That My Heart Skipped) and mother to…

Wednesday 15th Nov 2023 19.00 (SOLD OUT) Saturday 25th Nov 2023 20.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE TASTE OF THINGS

Set in late 19th-century France, and loosely based on Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel, La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet, this gastronomy and romance mixture centres on the relationship…

Thursday 16th Nov 2023 20.20 Monday 20th Nov 2023 20.15 (SOLD OUT)

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: VOYAGES EN ITALIE

Parisian couple Sophie and Jean-Fi, exhausted from the routine of daily life, take a holiday in Sicily, leaving their young boy Raoul with his grandparents. Just before they go, Jean-Fi…

Thursday 16th Nov 2023 18.00 Saturday 25th Nov 2023 13.15

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE RAPTURE

A lonely Parisian woman takes an obsessive interest in her best friend’s infant daughter in writer-director Iris Kaltenbäck’s engrossing psychological thriller. Lydia (Hafsia Herzi) is a recently single midwife; depressed,…

Thursday 16th Nov 2023 18.10

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: STRANGERS BY NIGHT

A chance encounter between two strangers is the catalyst for a surprising connection in Alex Lutz’s romantic drama which he not only co-wrote and directed, but also stars in. One…

Friday 17th Nov 2023 16.00 Friday 24th Nov 2023 18.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: JUST THE TWO OF US

This psychological drama by Valérie Donzelli, co-written with writer-director Audrey Diwan (Happening, 2022), is based on the novel by Éric Reinhardt. It tells the story of Blanche (Virginie Efira, Sibyl,…

Friday 17th Nov 2023 18.10 Tuesday 21st Nov 2023 20.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: LEOS CARAX: BOY MEETS GIRL + Q&A

Leos Carax’s debut feature (age 24) announced the arrival of a great, singular, and audacious filmmaker – a Rimbaud for the 1980s. Shot in densely detailed black-and-white by late DOP…

Friday 17th Nov 2023 20.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: LEOS CARAX: IN CONVERSATION

Leos Carax will take part in a director In Conversation event with Paul Whitington on Saturday, November 18th, 12.30–13.30. Paul Whitington is a film critic and columnist for the Irish…

Saturday 18th Nov 2023 12.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: LEOS CARAX: MAUVAIS SANG + Q&A

Carax’s dazzling second feature, Mauvais Sang (meaning Bad Blood) brought Carax to international attention and became ‘the film’ for a new generation of cinema-lovers. It’s the story of a heist…

Saturday 18th Nov 2023 15.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: ALONG CAME LOVE

It’s 1947, and Madeleine (Anaïs Demoustier, Smoking Causes Coughing), a single mother of a five-year-old son Daniel, waitresses in a Normandy hotel-restaurant. On the beach one day, she meets François…

Saturday 18th Nov 2023 17.40 Wednesday 22nd Nov 2023 18.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE GOLDMAN CASE

Cédric Kahn (festival guest in 2018) revisits the controversial case of Pierre Goldman, a far-left Jewish activist who faced a life sentence for four armed robberies and the killing of…

Saturday 18th Nov 2023 20.30 Thursday 23rd Nov 2023 18.10

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE SPECTRE OF BOKO HARAM

Falta is struggling to come to terms with the loss of her father in a terrorist attack. Her classmates, brothers Ibrahim and Mohamed, have fled their village and are now…

Saturday 18th Nov 2023 18.10

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: LEOS CARAX: HOLY MOTORS + Q&A

Leos Carax’s long-awaited fifth feature is a deliriously dreamy, highly stylish, and kaleidoscopic odyssey through the night streets of an eerie theatrical Paris. Longtime collaborator Denis Lavant pays tribute to…

Sunday 19th Nov 2023 13.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE NATURE OF LOVE

Sophie (Magalie Lépine Blondeau), a forty-year-old FrenchCanadian philosophy professor, worries that her comfortable marriage to fellow intellectual Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) has grown stale. Her restlessness finds a subject to fixate…

Sunday 19th Nov 2023 20.45 Saturday 25th Nov 2023 15.40

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: HOMECOMING

Khédidja (Aïssatou Diallo Sagna) has returned to Corsica where she worked some fifteen years ago to take up a summer childminding job for wealthy Parisian couple Sylvia (Virginie Ledoyen) and…

Sunday 19th Nov 2023 18.20 Wednesday 22nd Nov 2023 18.20

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: ALL YOUR FACES

Jeanne Herry brings together multiple stories with a brilliant ensemble cast including Adèle Exarchopoulos, Élodie Bouchez, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gilles Lellouche and the director’s mother, the veteran Miou-Miou. Through mediated face-to-face…

Sunday 19th Nov 2023 15.50 Wednesday 22nd Nov 2023 20.40

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: REWIND & PLAY

In December 1969, Thelonious Monk, on tour in Europe, recorded an interview for French TV. Alain Gomis discovered the unedited footage, revealing a dialogue between Monk and the French pianist,…

Monday 20th Nov 2023 18.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: THE PLOUGH

Three generations of a family of puppeteers are forced to reconcile their passion for tradition in the face of modernity in veteran filmmaker Philippe Garrel’s, In the Shadow of Women,…

Monday 20th Nov 2023 18.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: LES INDÉSIRABLES

An incendiary indictment of how racist housing policies imperil the vulnerable, Ladj Ly’s angry follow up to Les Misérables (2019) dramatises some of the most divisive social issues of our…

Tuesday 21st Nov 2023 18.10 Sunday 26th Nov 2023 18.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: OUR BODY

Shot with an all-female crew, veteran filmmaker Claire Simon’s (I Want to Talk About Duras, IFI FFF 2021) latest documentary is an extraordinary human and cinematic journey. Engaging with the…

Tuesday 21st Nov 2023 20.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: NO LOVE LOST

Étienne (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is barely 20 when he falls in love with Valérie, and when daughter Rosa (Céleste Brunnquell) is born. Then one day Valérie leaves them, without explanation,…

Thursday 23rd Nov 2023 18.20 (SOLD OUT)

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: LAST SUMMER

A pioneering filmmaker for nearly 50 years, renowned for explorations of female sexuality, Catherine Breillat returns with a daring portrait of Anne (Léa Drucker), a family lawyer specialising in child…

Thursday 23rd Nov 2023 20.40 Sunday 26th Nov 2023 13.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: GRAND EXPECTATIONS

Summer 2019: Madeleine (Rebecca Marder), a brilliant activist from a modest background, is preparing for her oral exam at an elite French school to study and become a politician. Madeleine’s…

Thursday 23rd Nov 2023 15.50 Saturday 25th Nov 2023 18.10

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: BONNARD PIERRE AND MARTHE

When painter Pierre Bonnard (Vincent Macaigne, Festival Guest, IFI FFF 2019) met Marthe de Méligny (Cécile de France) in a modest Paris studio in 1893, little did he realise that…

Friday 24th Nov 2023 15.30 Sunday 26th Nov 2023 15.20

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: NOVEMBER

In the days following the Bataclan attacks of November 13th, 2015, two terrorists, suspected to be responsible for the deaths of over 130 people, are at large. The anti-terrorist police…

Friday 24th Nov 2023 18.15

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: A DIFFICULT YEAR

Compulsive spenders Bruno (Jonathan Cohen) and Albert (Pio Marmaï) bond over their shared financial woes and take hopeless lessons in debt-reduction from Henri (Mathieu Amalric, The Diving Bell and the…

Friday 24th Nov 2023 20.40 Sunday 26th Nov 2023 20.20

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: RED ISLAND

Red Island, Robin Campillo’s first film since 120 BPM (2017), is a loosely autobiographical story of a boy’s coming-of-age in Madagascar on one of the last French army air bases…

Saturday 25th Nov 2023 13.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: DAAAAAALI!

Pharmacist turned journalist, Judith (Anaïs Demoustier) pursues the world’s most famous surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí, for an exclusive magazine interview. She meets him several times and each time Dalí walks…

Saturday 25th Nov 2023 18.30

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: SILENT SHORTS

We are delighted to present a unique selection of eight silent short films restored by the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation. They will screen before some of the new features in the…

Sunday 26th Nov 2023

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: IFI FAMILY: CHICKEN FOR LINDA!

Welcoming family audiences to IFI French Film Festival, this beautiful, award-winning, colourful 2D animation is sure to entertain. The story of young Linda, whose mother Paulette wrongly punishes her, and…

Sunday 26th Nov 2023 11.00

FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL: MENUS PLAISIRS LES TROISGROS

Now aged 93, master documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman immerses us for four hours in one of the best restaurants in the world, the three Michelin-star establishment, La Maison Troisgros. A…

Sunday 26th Nov 2023 12.00