French Cinema Lovers Alert!
The Hong Kong French Film Festival will return from 22 November to 12 December with more than hundred screenings across five cinemas. Organised by the Alliance Française de Hong Kong, the festival will celebrate its 52nd anniversary this year, making it the oldest film festival in the city, with more than 1,600 French films presented in the last five decades.
During the 3-week-festival, local cinephiles will get the chance to watch the best of French cinema, from classic movies to new films which haven’t even been released in France. The 52nd edition will mark the return of French actors and directors to the city after the pandemic, and will also feature special programmes to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Alliance Française de Hong Kong this year.
Ahead of the festival, we met with Jean-Sébastien Attié, Executive Director of Alliance Française de Hong Kong, and talked with passion about the organisation and highlights of this milestone edition.
Like for every edition, the movies selection started during the Cannes Film Festival in May and it took a few months to scout the upcoming productions, negotiate with the distributors, watch more than 150 films, and curate a list of about 40 new films to celebrate this year’s theme,“70 years of French Cinema”.
Selecting old movies brought also its shares of challenges, since many old movies do not have digital format nor English subtitles. Attié cited popular movies like Nikita (1990) and Taxi (1998), for which they collaborated with the distributor to produce compatible versions with English subtitles.
One of the highlights of the 52nd edition will be the seven French talents who will come in November to meet the Hong Kong audience. Actors Vincent Perez and Damien Bonnard, directors Karine Silla and Brigitte Sy, as well as Jean-Pierre Lavoignat, film critic and co-founder of Studio Magazine, will take part in several post-screening talks and masterclasses.
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Alliance Française de Hong Kong and to accompany the film festival, the photo exhibition Cinematic Pulse (Le cinéma au coeur) will feature a selection of 50 photos taken by Luc Roux, set photographer for French movies. There will also be guided tours with Luc Roux and Jean-Pierre Lavoignat, film critic and curator of the exhibition.
The wide selection of 54 films will offer the opportunity for the Hong Kong audience to discover the diversity of French cinema.
Apart from the long awaited Anatomy of a Fall (Anomie d’une chute) by Justine Triet, Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival 2023, Jean-Sébastien Attié highlights The Edge of the Blade (Une affaire d’honneur) by Vincent Perez, and Out of Love (Le bonheur est pour demain) by Brigitte Sy, both films with actor Damien Bonnard (Les Misérables, Dunkirk, The French Dispatch). Both directors and the actor will be there to present their respective films and take part in post-screening talks.
The documentaries Mixing (Métissages) and On the Set of “Forever Young” (Des Amandiers aux Amandiers) by Karine Silla – who happens to also be the co-screenwriter of The Edge of the Blade – will be featured, in the presence of the director.
Beside these highlights, Attié adds that The Taste of Good Things (Le Pot au Feu) by Tran Anh Hung, who won the Best Director Award at Cannes, is a must-see. As well as Jeanne du Barry by Maïwenn.
As a passionate who felt in love with all the selected movies, Attié can’t help but spotlighting many other films, such as A Difficult Year (Une année difficile) by Nakache and Toledano (The Untouchables), The Book of Solutions (Le livre des solutions), by Michel Gondry, The King of Algiers (Omar la fraise) by Elias Belkeddar, Paint it Gold (Un coup de maître) by Rémy Bezançon, On the Wandering Paths (Sur les chemins noirs) by Denis Imbert, with Jean Dujardin, or Suddenly (Soudain seuls) by Thomas Bidegain, with Gilles Lellouche.
In the Retrospective section, Attié thinks that they have selected masterpieces in their own genres, rarely showed on a big screen, like Don’t Look Now – We’re Being Shot At (La Grande Vadrouille) by Gérard Oury or Bolero (Les Uns et les Autres) by Claude Lelouch, as well as The Things of Life (Les choses de la vie) by Claude Sautet.
The screening of The Queen Margot (La reine Margot) by Patrice Chéreau, starring Isabelle Adjani, will mark the 10th anniversary since Patrice Chéreau passed away. The movie will be introduced by Jean-Pierre Lavoignat, who will also present The Things of Life.
So, whether you are French, Francophone, Francophile or Cinema Lover, there will be movies for every taste!
You can find all the movies details, schedule and ticketing information here: https://www.hkfrenchfilmfestival.com
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