Better left lost in translation

i’Ve just come back from the Dinard Film Festival, the only festival i can think of that is entirely devoted to films from Britain.

For four days Brittany celebrates a year of British movies in a pretty seaside town that is a cross between Brighton and rothesay.

The audiences come from all over France so the films play to packed houses – something you can’t guarantee for a British movie back here.

it was a good year for the scots: Peter Mackie Burns’ vivid first feature film Daphne was awarded a Golden Hitchcock for best screenplay, the quintessentially english actor Jim Broadbent surprised me by confiding a deep affection for Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill’s still Game, while a selection of premieres meant i got a chance to catch an early screening of Armando iannuci’s excellent new black comedy, The Death of stalin.

The Thick of it creator has turned his attention to the death of the soviet dictator in 1953, and the scramble among senior members of the Communist party to save their skins.

Apparently the russians are considering banning Armando’s movie, but the Dinard audience loved it, although the dialogue is so fast and furious that the French subtitlers couldn’t keep up with the baroque swearing by the panicky politburo onscreen.

On the way out of the cinema, i was approached by a bemused elderly couple seeking a definitive translation for a diminutive word we often associated with ‘Frances’.

We settled on ‘foolish person’; proof that French really is the language of diplomacy.