Chill with a Gallic movie in the Alliance Française French Film Festival
The crème de la crème of French cinema screens at Palace Cinemas in the 28th festival.
THE LATEST FRUITS of the vibrant French film industry screen this month, spanning comedy, biopics, drama, war stories, animation and romance. They include new movies from the Dardenne Brothers, Anne Fontaine and Bertrand Tavernier, and stars such as Isabelle Huppert, Daniel Auteuil, Omar Sy, Audrey Tautou and many, many more. Gender equality is especially strong, with 17 new movies from women directors. Here are Time Out’s 12 picks to look out for in the festival...
1 The Jacques Cousteau story: The Odyssey The visually impressive opening night film stars Lambert Wilson as undersea explorer and inventor of the aqualung, Jacques Cousteau, with Audrey Tautou as his wife Simone.
2 A psychic in Paris: Planetarium In this provocative drama Natalie Portman and Lily-rose Depp play American sisters travelling through 1930s Europe, the younger of whom performs a clairvoyant show.
3 A star-studded melodrama: It’s Only the End of the World Enfant terrible Xavier Dolan ( Mommy) won the Grand Prix of the Cannes Festival with this story of a playwright (Gaspard Ulliel) returning home after a 12-year absence to inform family members (including Léa Seydoux, Vincent Cassel and Marion Cotillard) of his terminal illness.
4 Backpacking misadventures: Lost in Paris A kooky Canadian (co-director Fiona Gordon) arrives in Paris to help her elderly aunt (the late Emmanuelle Riva), who promptly disappears, in a comedy paying homage to Jacques Tati.
5 Race politics and acrobatics: Monsieur Chocolat Omar Sy ( The Intouchables) stars as a former slave who became a huge circus star in 19thcentury France. Circus innovator James Thiérrée (a grandchild of Charlie Chaplin) co-stars.
6 Cinephiles rejoice: A Journey Through French Cinema Veteran filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier pinpoints three things that make French movies great: style, uninhibited morals, and graceful pessimism.
7 A Dardenne Brothers murder mystery: The Unknown Girl The Belgian masters of social realism ( Two Days,
One Night) tell the story of a doctor (Adèle Haenel) investigating the death of an African woman whose pleas for help she ignored.
8 A true Holocaust survival story: A Bag of Marbles A Jewish Frenchman (Patrick Bruel) gives his two young sons a map and some cash and sends them off to escape Nazi-occupied Paris.
9 Non-immaculate conceptions: The Innocents The new film by Anne Fontaine ( Coco avant Chanel) sees a French Red Cross worker (Lou de Laâge) in postwar Poland summoned to a convent where several sisters are in different stages of pregnancy.
10 Another great Isabelle Huppert performance: Things to Come Oscar-nominated for Elle, Huppert shines in the story of a philosophy teacher whose life is turned upside down after her husband leaves her.
11 Daniel Auteuil in vengeful mode: Kalinka The great French actor plays André Bamberski, who spent 27 years proving the guilt of the Austrian doctor he believed raped and killed his daughter.
12 Women soldiers coping with PTSD: The Stopover Ordered to relax at a resort in Cyprus after fighting in Afghanistan, two soldiers, Aurore and Marine, try to efface their trauma with parties, alcohol and drugs. àpalace Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth, Kino Cinemas and the Astor. 03 9525 3463. www.affrenchfilmfestival.org. $14.50-$33. Mar 8-30.