It's been awhile since I last blog and also since I last watched a movie in a cinema. So I just wish I can catch even just one of these masterpieces:
Organized by the
Embassy of France to the Philippines, the Alliance française de Manille, and
Institut Français, the 19th French Film Festival will be held from
June 10 to 15, 2014 at the Greenbelt 3 cinemas in Makati City.
These
are featured the movies in the festival:
20 Ans d’écart (It
Boy)
Alice Lantins is 38
years old. She’s beautiful, ambitious, and her impeccable professional
conscience makes her neglect her private life. In short, she has everything to
become the next editor-in-chief of Rebelle magazine - everything except for her
uptight image. But when the young and charming Balthazar, barely 20 years old,
crosses Alice’s path, her colleagues’ attitude inexplicably changes. Realizing
that the she holds the key to her promotion, Alice stages the comedy of an
improbable idyll.
Une autre vie
(Lovers)
Jean, an electrician,
installs alarms in the South of France. He encounters Aurore, a famous pianist.
Despite their differences, they immediately fall in love with each other and
envisage a life together. Jean wants to leave Dolorès, his longtime companion. But
she’s prepared to do anything to hold on to him.
Amour et turbulences
(Love is in the Air)
On her way back from
New York to Paris, where she’s soon to be married, Julie finds herself sitting
next to Antoine, an attractive cad whom she dated 3 years earlier. She’ll do
everything she can to avoid him, whereas he’s counting on the 7-hour flight to
win her back! It’s an opportunity for us to travel back in time and witness
their encounter, their love affair, their break-up... So many incredible,
romantic, and caustic scenes that will make this journey the most moving one of
their lives.
Les beaux jours
(Bright Days Ahead)
Bright days ahead?
Caroline has retired, at last. A new life lies before her: time to take care of
her children, her husband, and, most of all, herselfl. However, she soon comes
to realize that this new freedom is synonymous with boredom and idleness. Especially
when she receives a membership to her neighborhood’s senior club as a birthday
present... Reluctant at first, she nevertheless decides to take the plunge.
Oddly enough, she meets great people there, starting with the young computer
science teacher, who is far from insensitive to her charms. Caroline gradually
takes control of her life again and lives a second youth: taking a new lover,
living new experiences, breaking the rules, not doing what’s expected of her…
Who said that retirement was the beginning of the end and not a new beginning?
L’Écume des jours
(Mood Indigo)
This is the surreal
and poetic story of Colin, an idealistic and inventive young man, who meets
Chloé, a young woman who seems to be the incarnation of a blues by Duke
Ellington. Their idyllic marriage turns to sorrow when Chloé becomes ill, due
to a water lilly growing in her lung. To pay for her medical care, in a
fantastical Paris, Colin must work in increasingly absurd conditions, while
their apartment falls to bits around them and their circle of friends,
including talented Nicolas, and Chick, a fanatic of the philosoper Jean-Sol
Sartre, disintegrates.
La Vénus à la
fourrure (Venus in Fur)
Alone in a Paris
theater after a long day of auditioning actresses for the lead role in his new
play, writer-director Thomas complains on the phone about the poor caliber of
talent he has seen. No actress has what it takes to play his lead female
character - a woman who enters into an agreement with her male counterpart to
dominate him as her slave. Thomas is about to leave the theater when actress
Vanda bursts in, a whirlwind of erratic - and, it turns out, erotic - energy.
At first she seems to
embody everything Thomas has been lamenting. She is pushy, foul-mouthed,
desperate and ill-prepared - or so it seems. But when Thomas finally,
reluctantly, agrees to let her try out for the part, he is stunned and
captivated by her transformation. Not only is Vanda a perfect fit (even sharing
the character’s name), but she apparently has researched the role exhaustively
- down to buying props, reading source materials and learning every line by
heart. The likeness proves to be much more than skin-deep. As the extended
"audition" builds momentum, Thomas moves from attraction to
obsession...
Mon âme par toi guérie
(One of a Kind)
Frédi has the gift of
healing hands, transmitted to him by his mother. He wants nothing to do with
this ’gift,’, but when his mother dies, he’s obliged to make use of it.
Although he wonders where this ability came from, he can do nothing but accept
it.
Quai d’Orsay
Alexandre Taillard de
Worms is tall, magnificent, a dashing man attractive to women and,
incidentally, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the land of the Enlightenment:
France. His silver mane and his robust athlete’s body are everywhere, from the
United Nations tribunal in New York to the powder keg of Oubanga. He admonishes
powerful men and invokes the finest minds in order to bring peace and calm the
trigger-happy - and to justify his aura of a future Nobel Prize for cosmic peace.
Alexandre Taillard de
Worms is a powerful thinker, fighting with the back-up of the holy trinity of
diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity and efficiency. He fights against
American neo-conservatists, corrupt Russians, and greedy Chinese. Although the
world doesn’t deserve France’s generosity of spirit, Taillard de Worms’ art
feels cramped within the nation’s borders. Arthur Vlaminck, a young academic
preparing his PhD, is hired by the minister. To put it plainly, he must write
the great man’s speeches. But first he must learn how to deal with the prince’s
moods and his entourage, forging a place between his cabinet director and
advisers who haunt the Quai d’Orsay, where stress, ambition and underhand
tactics are all part of operations. Just when he glimpses the world’s fate, he
is threatened by the technocrats’ inertia.
The French, the festival also pays tribute
to Filipino filmmaking on Independence Day on June 12 by screening three
masterpieces that have had the honor of being screened at the prestigious
Cannes Film Festival: Lino Brocka’s digitally-restored “Maynila sa mga Kuko ng
Liwanag,” Erik Matti’s “OTJ,” and Lav Diaz’ “Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan.”
Tickets for the films
will be on sale for a minimal price of P100 at the Greenbelt 3 cinemas.
For the screening
schedules please refer to the image below:
