French films cross the Channel

by Fabien Lemercier

12/11/2010 - Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Aberdeen, Dumfries, Dundee, Inverness, Stirling and Warwick: these are the nine British cities participating in the 18th French Film Festival UK, which kicked off yesterday and will close on December 7.

The line-up includes five titles in UK avant-premiere: Bertrand Tavernier’s The Princess of Montpensier [trailer] (Optimum Releasing); Roselyne Bosch’s The Round-Up [trailer] (distribution: Revolver); Marc Dugain’s An Ordinary Execution (Arrow); Riad Sattouf’s The French Kissers [trailer] (CinéFile); and Rachid Bouchareb’s Outside the Law [trailer] (Optimum Releasing).

The Discovery section will unspool Christopher Thompson’s Bus Palladium [trailer], Mona Achache’s The Hedgehog [trailer], Imogène [trailer] by directorial duo Alexandre Charlot and Franck Magnier, Christophe Blanc’s White As Snow [trailer] and Stéphane Géhami’s Straight to the Heart. The line-up also includes Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond’s The Small Room [trailer, film focus], which is Swiss hopeful for the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and stars Florence Loiret Caille, Michel Bouquet and Eric Caravaca.

Eleven features are in the Panorama programme: Safy Nebbou’s Dumas [trailer], Laurent Tirard’s Little Nicholas [trailer], Stéphane Brizé’s Mademoiselle Chambon [trailer], Danièle Thompson’s Change of Plans [trailer], Costa Gavras’s Eden Is West [trailer], Karim Dridi’s Khamsa [trailer], Lisa Azuelos’s LOL [trailer], Christophe Honoré’s Making Plans for Lena [trailer], Cédric Kahn’s Regrets [trailer], Zabou Breitman’s Someone I Loved [trailer] and Jean-Paul Lilienfield’s Skirt Day [trailer].

French films are enjoying a prosperous 2010 in UK theatres with particularly good results garnered by Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet [trailer, film focus] (256,000 admissions); Pascal Chaumeil’s Heartbreaker [trailer] (135,000 viewers); Joann Sfar’s Je T’Aime, Moi Non Plus [trailer]; Jan Kounen’s Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky [trailer]; Mia Hansen Love’s Father of My Children [trailer, film focus]; and majority French production The Ghost Writer [trailer] by Roman Polanski (800,000 admissions).

(Translated from French)