Au mois de mars mon film satyagraha sonne l’alarme à New-York !
North America’s leading showcase for the best in contemporary French film returns! Works by several of France’s best-known filmmakers–Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Lelouch, Catherine Breillat, Benoît Jacquot–are included alongside outstanding debuts by Katell Quillévéré, Valérie Donzelli, and Angelo Cianci, and two programs of experimental media works. Finally, we are delighted to welcome back Catherine Deneuve, who will be with us to present the delightful Potiche. All films are New York premieres!
FRENCH EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA PROGRAM ONE: REDEPLOYING CLASSICAL IMAGES
Curated by Nicole Brenez, prominent film critic and curator for the experimental cinema programs at the Cinémathèque française in Paris
Saturday Mar 12: 4:15 pm
SERIES: RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2011
COUNTRY: FRANCE | FRENCH | RUNNING TIME:81M
An “Oum Kalthoumâ€/Kama Sutra mash-up, Lech Kowalski on Robert Flaherty’s glorious Louisiana Story, Eisenstein reflecting on the beating of cineaste Joachim Gatti, and more.
The End of the World Begins With One Lie
Lech Kowalski, France, 2010; 62m
Drawing on Internet images related to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, director Lech Kowalski deconstructs Robert Flaherty’s classic 1948 documentary Louisiana Story (a film originally commissioned by Standard Oil). “I am quite interested in how the Internet is giving us information using images that anyone can produce and the contrast between ‘corporate’ images and nonprofessional images and story constructions,†says Kowalski.
Al Attlal (Ruines)
Zoulikha Bouabdellah, France, 2009; 4m
Music by Philippe Mallier, with text by Ibrahim Naji and music by Riad Sunbati, the cult song by Oum Kalthoum covers a major theme in Arab poetry: recalling a past love. The slideshow’s soundtrack (produced with the composer Philippe Mallier) reinvests the singer’s wailing with new meaning: the original moaning becomes sexually charged sighing, played over an elliptical background of poses from the Kama Sutra, as if to synthesize the act of love-making.
À la barbe d’Ivan
Pierre Léon, France, 2010; 10m
An insightful work from cineaste, critic, musician, and actor Pierre Léon (whose films will be featured in our April series Free Radicals: Serge Bozon and the New French Cinema). Léon uses images from Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible to reflect upon the 2010 beating of young cineaste Joachim Gatti by police and the economically vulnerable members of French society.
Satyagraha
Jacques Perconte, France, 2010; 5m
A meditation on the principle of non-violence as employed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in the practice of civil disobedience. What has happened to Gandhi’s values today?
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023-6595
Walter Reade Theater
Automated schedule line 212 875 5600
Box Office 212 875 5601
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Support for Rendezvous is provided by the Grand Marnier Foundation and the French Cultural Services.