The 19th edition of the French Film Festival kicked off today October 26 to run until November 8 in eight Romanian cities and it includes an interesting week in collaboration with famous Cahiers du Cinema magazine.
The festival opens in Bucharest and Brasov on October 30; in Timisoara, Iasi and Cluj-Napoca on October 29; in Sibiu on October 28 and in Constanta on October 26. In Buzau, the festival is running November 6-7.
The French Film Festival includes the categories of the past editions — “Panorama” and the “Young Director” competition — along with special events such as a white night of French thrillers, and a golden day.
The selection of the six films for the “Semaine de Cahiers,” Chaiers’ week, event, is an introspection of noir and thriller films and a retrospect of French filmmaking. The selected films are: “Alphaville” by Jean-Luc Godard (the 1960s), “L’Etrangleur” (The Strangler) by Paul Vecchiali (the 1970s), “Vivement dimanche!” (Confidentially Yours) by François Truffaut (the 1980s), “J’ai pas sommeil” (I Can’t Sleep) by Claire Denis, “La Ceremonie” by Claude Chabrol (the 1990s) and “La chambre bleue” (The Blue Room) by Mathieu Amalric (2014).
Seven premieres by young French film directors will be also presentd, in the presence of some of them. Spectators may vote in the Public Prize category, with the winning film to be subsequently distributed in Romania.
The “Panorama” category enables the audience to discover or rediscover emblematic productions of the contemporary French filmmaking.
The 2015 edition of the festival pays homage to Belgian-born director Chantal Anne Akerman, known for her feminine and feminist films. The selected production, “La folie Almayer” (Almayer’s Folly) (2011), starring Stanislas Merher, Aurora Marion and Marc Berbe is a screen adaptation of the homonymous book by Joseph Conrad, with four nominations to the Magritte Award.
On November 1, the French Film Festival in Bucharest, in partnership with Les Films de Cannes a Bucarest, holds a golden day to celebrate world’s best 2015 productions.
All the films are screened in their original language with subtitles in Romanian.