2003 FESTIVAL PROGRAM |
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Second Annual Sacramento French Film Festival |
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Welcome! Bienvenue !Bonjour à tous ! Bonjour aux déjà " vieux " amis qui nous ont soutenus l'an passé. Bonjour à celles et à ceux qui vont les rejoindre cette année. The Sacramento French Film Festival is proud to bring you twelve feature films representing the best of French cinema, past and present; including seven new French films of varying genre and style, all in their Sacramento premieres, some yet to be released in the United States and five classic masterpieces. Original short films about France, from the Sacramento art group 23 Degrees will precede each feature. This collection of digital shorts, made for the festival will also be shown all day long on a video wall installed in the lobby of the Crest. The Festival is very excited to include works from Sacramento artists in its selection. The audience will be invited to rate each new film. The audience prize will be announced at the closing night screening of LE CERCLE ROUGE, on Sunday 13th. |
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Show TimesThe Sacramento French Film Festival will open on Friday July 11th, with a fabulous Reception (catering by Enotria, wine by Barton-Guestier) in the lobby of the CREST THEATRE from 6:00pm to 8:00pm; followed by the opening night film, TO BE AND TO HAVE, at 8:30pm. Friday July 11th 6pm-8pm OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION in the Lobby of the CREST THEATRE Saturday July 12th In the Main Auditorium 11:30am L'ATALANTE (89 min) by Jean Vigo In the Small Auditorium 1:30pm GRAND ILLUSION (La Grande Illusion, 117min) by Jean Renoir Sunday July 13th In the Main Auditorium 12:00pm GRAND ILLUSION (La Grande Illusion, 117min) In the Small Auditorium 12:30pm A MAN ESCAPED (Un Condamné à mort s'est échappé, 99 min) All feature films are in French with English subtitles. The CREST THEATRE is located at 1013 K Street in Downtown Sacramento, |
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FilmsOpening Night:To Be and To Have - Être et Avoir
Awards: Best Documentary, European Film Awards; Prix Louis Delluc 2002. "To Be and To Have isn't a documentary in the traditional sense, with a demonstrative and didactic approach. I wanted to tell a story, provoke emotion and stay close to the characters in this adventure in order to share their trials, joys and minor dramas." - Nicolas Philibert Renowned documentary filmmaker, Nicolas Philibert (In The land of the Deaf, Every Little Thing) takes us in the microcosm of a one-room schoolhouse in a remote mountain village in Auvergne, St.-Etienne-sur-Osson, population 200. The teacher, the charismatic Georges Lopez, presides over a dozen students, ages 3 to 11. Lopez has lived and worked at the school for 21 years and is now set to retire. Responsible for nurturing the children in all subjects, ranging from math and writing to cooking, he also resolves classroom disputes and counsels parents on the side. One Screening Only - Opening Night - Friday July 11th, 8:30pm
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New Releases:Alias Betty - Betty Fisher et Autres Histoires
Awards: Best Actress Sandrine Kiberlain and Nicole Garcia, Chicago International Film Festival 2001; Best Actress Sandrine Kiberlain, Nicole Garcia and Mathilde Seigner, International Critic's Prize, Montreal International World Film Festival 2001 Betty (Sandrine Kiberlain) successful novelist and single mother, loses her young son in an accident. Her mentally disturbed mother (Nicole Garcia) decides to cheer up her daughter by kidnapping a young boy off the streets of a housing project. At first Betty, still mourning the loss of her son wants nothing to do with the boy. Meanwhile, the young kid's mother (Mathilde Seigner), a sexy barmaid with loose morals, doesn't seem very affected by the disappearance of her son. Saturday 12th, 1:45pm - Sunday 13th, 8:00pm |
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Baise Moi
Festivals: Toronto Film Festival 2000, San Francisco International Film Festival 2001, Seattle International Film Festival 2001 Manu (Raffaela Anderson), abused and violently raped, meets Nadine (Karen Bach), a prostitute who had encountered too much injustice in the world. For both, sex plays a pivotal and often destructive role and for once in their lives, they decide to take control of their destinies. Angry at the world, they embark on a twisted, rage filled road-trip. They choose to have sex when they please and kill when they need, leaving a trail of mischief and dead bodies. Soon, everyone is out to capture the two young fugitives. "It 's already been banned in France, which takes some doing!" - Gavin Smith, Film Comment. Special Screening - Saturday 12th, Midnight |
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Friday Night - Vendredi Soir
It is Friday evening in Paris. In her apartment, Laure (Valérie Lemercier) finishes packing her belongings. Tomorrow morning, she is moving in with her lover. She goes out to have dinner with friends and gets stuck in a huge traffic jam as a transit strike paralyzes the city. But Laure feels good in her car, the only place she has for herself right now and she starts observing the world around her. A stranger (Vincent Lindon) approaches her car and asks for a ride. She opens the door to the man who might change her life. "At once shy and bold, discreet and abandoned, simply the sexiest film ever made about two people." - Amy Taubin, Film Comment One screening only - Saturday 12th, 9:00pm |
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2002 Writer/Director: Festivals: Toronto Film Festival 2002, Rotterdam Film Festival 2003, Tribeca Film Festival 2003, San Francisco International Film Festival 2003. The Sacramento French Film Festival invites you to an exciting cinematographic experience. From Belgium filmmaker Lucas Belvaux come three films, three stories that cross one another, three different genres: a film noir, a comedy and a melodrama. The Trilogy is based on the principle of cross encounters: the main characters in each film have minor roles in the others and vice versa. Just as each of us is the main character of our own life, surrounded by people more or less close to us who are themselves the main characters of their lives and for whom we play more or less secondary roles. Each film has its own existence, its own atmosphere, its beginning and end. Therefore the three films form a whole but can be seen independently. Each tells a different story and lets us see all the characters from three very different perspectives. There are meeting points that make up the shared scenes but few of them because the films cross one another but are not intertwined. The fascinating part is not so much seeing the same situations differently, but rather the discovery of what went on during the ellipses. Each film functions alone. Each generates its own feeling and interest: Fear, laughter and tears. |
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The Trilogy 1 / On The Run - La Trilogie 1 / Cavale
A Film Noir.
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The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple - La Trilogie 2 / Un Couple Épatant
A Comedy. One screening only - Sunday 13th, 2:45pm |
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The Trilogy 3 / After The Life -
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| Cast: Pascal Manise: Gilbert Melki Agnès Manise: Dominique Blanc Bruno Le Roux: Lucas Belvaux Cécile Costes: Ornella Muti Jeanne Rivet: Catherine Frot Running Time: 105 minutes Rating: Not Rated (violence, drug use). |
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A Melodrama.
Pascal (Gilbert Melki) is a cop in Grenoble. His wife, Agnès (Dominique Blanc), a teacher, has been a drug addict since before they met. He had never been able to make her quit and now the only thing he can do to help is provide her with morphine so she can continue to live a normal life. He loves her and it is his way to protect her. One day, Agnès introduces him to her colleague Cécile who thinks her husband is cheating on her. Pascal falls under the charm of Cécile. She is so beautiful and so sane. Meanwhile, he is working on a case: Bruno Le Roux (Lucas Belvaux) had just escaped from prison. One night, Agnès meets Bruno. He helps her and in return she decides to help him.
One screening only - Sunday 13th, 5:15pm
Films
Opening Night:
To Be and To Have
New Releases:
Alias Betty
Baise Moi
Friday Night
The Trilogy:
The Trilogy 1 / On The Run
The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple
The Trilogy 3 / After The Life
Classics:
A Man Escaped
L'Atalante
Breathless
Le Cercle Rouge
Grand Illusion
Classics
A Man Escaped - Un Condamné à Mort s'est échappé
1956Writer/Director:
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"Acting is for the theatre, which is a bastard art." - Robert Bresson
And so: a compelling ensemble of non-actors in a transcendent meditation on resistance and redemption, set in a German prison in wartime occupied France, and directed with characteristic restraint by the cinema's most complete stylist. Bresson is the quintessential auteur, and his method is the most rigorous in cinema.
In this film, based on a true story (not Bresson's, although he did spend time imprisoned by the Gestapo), the suspense arises not from dramatic devices, but from Bresson's insistence on showing the Sysiphic details of the condemned man's process of escape.
A rare opportunity to see this unforgettable masterwork from one of cinema's greatest directors, the artistic and spiritual father of contemporary filmmakers like Aki Kaurismaki and Jim Jarmusch. With somber, evocative images by Leonce-Henry Burel (who photographed Gance's Napoleon) and music by Mozart.
Saturday 12th, 4:30pm- Sunday 13th, 12:30pm
Films
Opening Night:
To Be and To Have
New Releases:
Alias Betty
Baise Moi
Friday Night
The Trilogy:
The Trilogy 1 / On The Run
The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple
The Trilogy 3 / After The Life
Classics:
A Man Escaped
L'Atalante
Breathless
Le Cercle Rouge
Grand Illusion
L'Atalante
1934Writer/Director: |
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The legendary Jean Vigo's final masterpiece: a surreal, darkly lyrical voyage down the River Seine with Jean Daste, Dita Parlo (the German woman who hides the escaping prisoners in La Grande Illusion), and Michel Simon.
Vigo stands apart from any cinematic tradition, and he lived out his brief career (just three feature films) on the margins of the film industry, but his influence on the art form is still felt today. Much written and talked about, rarely seen, this is one of the screen's greatest works. The story invites comparison with Murnau's Sunrise: a peasant girl marries a barge captain, hoping for adventure, but is disappointed by the realities of conjugal life. Vigo's examination of love's transit is heartbreaking and invigorating, a profoundly cinematic triumph of sensuality and emotion that was butchered by the censors in its day (Vigo went to the heart of "bourgeoise" morality), but is now available to us in its original glory. Unforgettable images by cinematographer Boris Kaufman before he went to Hollywood (On The Waterfront, The Pawnbroker).
"To miss out on this movie should be a civil offense punishable by law. It has often been acclaimed as the masterwork of the French director Jean Vigo, although his admirers would politely point out that masterworks were all he was capable of making." - Anthony Lane, New Yorker.
Saturday 12th, 11:30am and 9:45pm- Sunday 13th, 5:45pm
Films
Opening Night:
To Be and To Have
New Releases:
Alias Betty
Baise Moi
Friday Night
The Trilogy:
The Trilogy 1 / On The Run
The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple
The Trilogy 3 / After The Life
Classics:
A Man Escaped
L'Atalante
Breathless
Le Cercle Rouge
Grand Illusion
Breathless - À Bout de Souffle
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1959 Writer/Director: Cast: Running Time: 87 minutes |
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"J'aime beaucoup La France", muses Michel Poiccard, car thief, moments before killing a motorcycle cop. And for the next twenty-four hours (and ninety minutes of cinema-time) he tries to hustle money for his escape in the streets of Paris.
Jean-Luc Godard's first feature (co-written with Francois Truffaut) is an iconoclastic manifesto: arguably the most influential sound film since Citizen Kane, and like Welles' film, summed up much of what had come before, and prefigured what would be. It is at once an atmospheric policier in the classic tradition (Godard dedicated the film to Monogram Pictures, a studio specializing in low-budget actioners and serials) and a Lacanian puzzle piece of fractured space and time, laced with signifiers of desire and dissatisfaction, filled with dark corners and dark humor. A new print of an unforgettable cinema experience. With the extraordinary screen presences of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg -as the most beautiful (and dangerous) anti-heroine the screen as ever seen-, captured in glorious black and white images by Raoul Coutard. Music by French jazz legend Martial Solal.
Saturday 12th, 6:45pm - Sunday 13th, 3:00pm
Films
Opening Night:
To Be and To Have
New Releases:
Alias Betty
Baise Moi
Friday Night
The Trilogy:
The Trilogy 1 / On The Run
The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple
The Trilogy 3 / After The Life
Classics:
A Man Escaped
L'Atalante
Breathless
Le Cercle Rouge
Grand Illusion
Le Cercle Rouge
1970Writer/Director:
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Running Time: 140 minutes
Rating: Not Rated (violence, brief nudity).
Distributor: Rialto Pictures
"Le Cercle Rouge is visually arresting and powerful in its silence. By creating a cool, calm atmosphere with immaculate camerawork and precise editing rhythms, (Melville's) style and message move with his actors as they deliver their soulful performances. Melville's themes embody the spirit of honor, loyalty, and tragic destiny among characters played by fate." - John Woo (Face Off, Mission Impossible 2).
An intricately plotted, character-driven, poetic film noir with two gangsters (Alain Delon and Gian-Maria Volonte) combining to pull "the big job". They're over their heads and at the end of their ropes, but losers don't have a choice: they CAN'T quit. Beautifully mounted by Jean-Pierre Melville in his signature lean-and-hungry style (L'Armée des Ombres, Bob Le Flambeur, Le Doulos, Le Samourai) and with dark and gorgeously acid photography by the great Henri Decae (Les Quatre Cent Coups, Le Beau Serge, Les Amants). Melville was a prime catalyst for the Nouvelle Vague, and he played a film director in Godard's first feature A Bout de Souffle. He is still an inspiration for contemporary filmmakers such as Jarmush, Tarantino and John Woo.
Featuring also Yves Montand as a dissolute ex-flic and Bourvil, in his last role, as a cop.
Fatalist Crime drama nonpareil! In a whole new print just released in the United States.
One Screening Only - Closing Night - Sunday 13th, 7:45pm
Films
Opening Night:
To Be and To Have
New Releases:
Alias Betty
Baise Moi
Friday Night
The Trilogy:
The Trilogy 1 / On The Run
The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple
The Trilogy 3 / After The Life
Classics:
A Man Escaped
L'Atalante
Breathless
Le Cercle Rouge
Grand Illusion
Grand Illusion - La Grande Illusion
1937Director:
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Running Time: 117 minutes
Rating: Not Rated.
Distributor: Rialto Pictures
Grand Illusion ranks among the supreme achievements in film. One of the most powerful anti-war films, set during WW1 and based partly on the director's own experience, Grand Illusion follows a trio of French prisoners (Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay and Marcel Dalio) in a series of German POW camps. Renoir displays their eighteen months of captivity - and several escapes! - with delicate humor and admirable humanity. Renoir shows that social divisions and prejudices separate people more than nationality and language. Declared "Cinema Enemy Number One" by nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Grand Illusion is now considered one of the best films of all time.
Saturday 12th, 1:30pm and 7:00pm - Sunday 13th, Noon
Films
Opening Night:
To Be and To Have
New Releases:
Alias Betty
Baise Moi
Friday Night
The Trilogy:
The Trilogy 1 / On The Run
The Trilogy 2 / An Amazing Couple
The Trilogy 3 / After The Life
Classics:
A Man Escaped
L'Atalante
Breathless
Le Cercle Rouge
Grand Illusion
The SACRAMENTO FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL is supported by
- Local filmmaker Mark Herzig
- Ernst and Young Accounting Firm
- Enotria Cafe & Wine Bar
- La Provence Restaurant
- Signature Press
- Barton-Guestier Wine
- Sacramento Downtown Partnership
- Rolle French Gourmet Foods
- Studio Z Recording
- Creators of the Festival poster
- Photographer Kent Lacin and
- Graphic designer Brantley Payne
- The Alliance Française de Sacramento
- And several individual sponsors.