GREENWICH INFINITI PROUD SPONSOR OF THE FOCUS ON FRENCH CINEMA PROUD SPONSOR OF 315 Millbank Ave. Greenwich, CT 06830 203-869-2600 GreenwichInfiniti.com Letter from the Focus on French Cinema Team BIENVENUE... Welcome to Focus on French Cinema 2017, the annual festival of French-language film from around the world presented by the Alliance Française of Greenwich. Established in 2005, Focus on French Cinema is a wide-ranging film festival embracing the best of cinema from France, Switzerland, Canada, Belgium, Lebanon, French speaking African countries and beyond. Now in its 13th year, Focus on French Cinema returns to Connecticut and Manhattan for a week long festival from March 27 to April 2. The lineup of over 20 films includes multiple César winners and an award-winning selection of short films as well as a very special Tribute to the Cinema of Québec co-organized with the Montréal festival CINEMANIA. Our list of distinguished partners and venues continues to expand: in addition to CINEMANIA and long term partner Festival du film francophone d’Angoulême (co-directed by guest Dominique Besnehard), we are honored once again to boast screenings at the Avon Theater in Stamford, CT; New York Opening Night at FIAF; for the first time, at the Lycée Francais de New York; and for the second year in a row, a screening at the United Nations in partnership with the International Organization of La Francophonie. This year Focus on French Cinema honors the illustrious career of legendary filmmaker Claude Lelouch, who will be on hand for the U.S. Premiere of the 50th anniversary restoration of his masterpiece A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme). Focus on French Cinema will welcome Lelouch for the entire festival week. From the Greenwich Opening Night festivities to the Tribute to Québec; with round-table discussions as well as multiple Q & A’s, Focus on French Cinema continues to be a platform for discussion, debate and discovery of the French- speaking world. We hope that you will again be challenged, enchanted and entertained with the selection this year. Thank you for your support, the continued support of our sponsors and partners and the incredible team that is Focus on French Cinema. Et maintenant, que le spectacle commence! Team Focus on French Cinema EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Renée Amory Ketcham - Chair, President, Alliance Française of Greenwich Gail Covney Marie-José Hunter Anne Kern Fereshteh Priou Laurence Teinturier SELECTION COMMITTEE Anne Kern – Director of Programming Antoine Bancharel Mary Hardy Renée Amory Ketcham Guilhem Caillard – Tribute to Quebec Statement from the Director of Programming On behalf of the Selection Committee for the 13th edition of Focus on French Cinema, we welcome you, our audience. You are the reason the festival exists, and you are always with us, in our minds and hearts, as we preview scores of films each year from throughout the French-speaking world. It has been my privilege to serve as Director of Programming for you over these past three years. To refer to myself in the first person singular is misleading, however, since our Selection Committee functions so seamlessly as a team. I would like to honor the crucial contributions of Selection Committee members Mary Hardy, Renee Ketcham and Antoine Bancharel, as well as Festival and Guest Coordinators Clément Letailleur and Jeanne Billaud and Programming Intern Apolline Bas. Without any one of them, we could not have brought you this rich, diverse slate of films and guests. Indeed, diverse is the perfect word to sum up this year’s selection: on display here is a wide diversity of genres, forms, and above all, a diversity of voices, cultures, and points of view. And while diversity in a political context may have been repurposed to the point that it risks losing all definition, we see the term regain its full force in these films, which herald the vitality and continued relevance of French-language cinema in the face of global commercial pressures. They demonstrate over and again that we can bring the world closer through art, and be delighted and entertained along the way. We begin by celebrating the sweep of history, from Bertrand Tavernier’s My Journey Through French Cinema to our spotlight on the career of legendary director and honored guest Claude Lelouch, including the 50th anniversary restoration of his classic A Man and a Woman; his thoroughly 21st century take on romance in Un + Une; and an exclusive peek at guest Philippe Azoulay’s stunningly intimate portrait of Lelouch in Shoot to Live. We discover Quebec’s burgeoning film culture through six feature films, six shorts, a special round table discussion and an entire delegation of brilliant young Quebec talent (a special note of thanks to CINEMANIA Guest Programmer Guilhem Caillard for his assistance with guests and for curating the Quebec shorts in particular). We highlight the diversity of cinematic form through a bevy of shorts and several of the year’s standout documentaries, including guest Olivier Babinet’s Swagger, which depicts an exuberant group of teenagers from an underserved suburb of Paris; Julie Bertuccelli’s Latest News from the Cosmos, in which a severely autistic woman thought to be illiterate is discovered to be a brilliant literary artist; and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Hissein Habré, which traces the devastating consequences of a charismatic and cruel leader on the central African country of Chad, including the survivors whose spirits remain resolutely unbroken. Finally, we offer a diversity of perspectives on the forces shaping our world now, including Raja Amari’s Foreign Body, produced by guest Dominique Besnehard, which follows the story of a refugee from the Tunisian revolution as she resettles in France; guest Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar’s Heaven Will Wait, offering a surprising take on the passage of young people to jihadism; and Lucien Jean-Baptiste’s comedy He Even Has Your Eyes starring guest Aïssa Maïga, where we are reminded that ultimately love is love, no matter one’s skin color or culture. - Anne Kern Tribute to Quebec It was a year ago already, as I discovered Focus on French Cinema, that the idea of a Tribute to Quebec began to take form. Much has been accomplished since then and, today, this marks the first time that an entire section of the festival’s program will be dedicated to Quebec cinema. I have had the great pleasure of working closely with the FFC Selec- tion Committee to recommend films and guests and to help them put this Tribute together. I would like to thank the entire FFC team for their invitation and for hosting this crucial, new initiative. I use the word “crucial” because Quebec cinema lacks exposure in the US. This unique opportunity offered by the FFC this year thus represents a rare occasion for Connecticut and New York filmgoers to discover the cultural wealth of today’s Quebec film production. To showcase this effervescence, we have chosen six feature films and six shorts among those that have left their mark over the past year. Of course, it was impossible to leave Xavier Dolan behind. At 27, he has already directed seven feature films and has become one of the most acclaimed voices among Quebec’s new generation of filmmakers. It’s Only the End of the World, Grand Prize at Cannes, will open the FFC. This Tribute is the occasion to welcome to Greenwich young talents from Montreal. Director Anne Émond will be presenting Nelly, which brings to the big screen for the first time the life of Quebec novelist Nelly Arcan, embodied with superb aplomb by up-and-coming star Mylène Mackay who is also making the trip to Connecticut. Yan England will be presenting 1:54, an important film about bullying. His main actor, Antoine Olivier Pilon (the unforgettable Steve in Dolan’s Mommy), will also be present at FFC. Actor Émile Schneider will represent Kiss Me Like a Lover and A Pact Among Angels. Starring in both films, Émile goes from historical melodrama to family drama with great ease, impressing audiences with a nuanced and charismatic sensitivity. And, cherry on the pie, Richard Angers, director of A Pact Among Angels, will be joining us to present his first feature film! The short film scene is also vibrantly innovative in Quebec, so we were keen on showcasing some of its representatives. Best known for playing a high school student in popular Quebec television series 30 vies, young thespian Théodore Pellerin makes a sensational splash in two short films presented this year at FFC, Sigismond Imageless and By the Pool. A promising revelation, Théodore offers supercharged, disarming performances full of a rare emotional intelligence. Filmmaker François Jaros will accompany his film Oh What a Wonderful Feeling, which premiered at the 2016 Critics Week in Cannes. Rounding out the Tribute to Quebec program are feature comedy Bad Seeds (winner of two prizes in Angoulême) and short films Plain and Simple, My Last Summer and Nonna. Truly, the FFC can take pride in such a formidable selection. As for myself, I invite you to join me on the other side of the border, in Montreal, for the 23rd edition of CINEMANIA (November 2-12). Until then, enjoy the FFC and long live Quebec cinema! Guilhem Caillard Managing Director, CINEMANIA Film Festival (Quebec) Guest programmer in charge of the Tribute to Quebec 13th Annual FFC Round Table The Present and Future of French Cinema Saturday, April 1 - 11:15am Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas • Room 1 Free Admission + Complimentary Lunch FFC 2017 guests gather to discuss the state of contemporary French cinema with one another and the audience.