French Film Festival

Date: Monday-Friday, February 1-5, 2010

Time: 7 p.m. (each evening)

Place: Vander Vennet Theater, Student Center

Description: For the fifth consecutive year, Saint Mary's College is offering to the Michiana community the opportunity to view recent French films. The week of French films provides students of French, at Saint Mary's and other educational institutions, colleges, universities or secondary schools, the chance to practice listening to authentic French in culturally rich contexts. Film lovers will find the selections an enticing and intriguing addition to the usual local cinematic offerings. The French Film Festival is sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and the Center for Women’s Intercultural Leadership. All films are shown in French with English subtitles.

Monday: Entre les murs (The Class) François and his fellow teachers prepare for a new year at a high school in a tough neighborhood. Armed with the best intentions, they brace themselves to not let discouragement stop them from trying to give the best education to their students. François insists on an atmosphere of respect and diligence. Neither stuffy nor severe, his extravagant frankness often takes the students by surprise. But his classroom ethics are put to the test when his students begin to challenge his methods.

Tuesday: Les Amours d’Astrée et Céladon (The Romance of Astrée and Céladon) Based on Honoré d’Urfé’s 17th-century novel, this romance is set among the charming young shepherds and shepherdesses—as well as the nymphs, fairies, and druids that dwell among them on the Forez plain in 5th century Gaul. This film’s circling and enchanting plot is reminiscent of Shakespeare plays A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet. It is an exquisite, enthralling, thoroughly cinematic exploration of love, freedom, and honor set in idyllic French pastures, where romance grows like roses on a vine.

Wednesday: Azur et Asmar (Azur and Asmar) This feature tells the story of two boys, the white, blue-eyed prince Azur, and the dark-skinned Asmar, both of whom are being raised by Asmar’s mother. Separated by Azur’s father, the boys meet up again several years later in an unidentified Arab country—where Azur’s blue eyes terrify the locals, leading him to feign blindness—in order to free a magical fairy. Deftly yet subtly addressing racism, intolerance, and superstition, Azur and Asmar also dazzles with its sheer beauty.

Thursday: La Graine et le mulet (The Secret of the Grain) Slimane, the patriarch of a large and vivacious North African family, is an elderly dockworker. When his job of many years is suddenly no longer secure, he decides to restore an old boat, and turn it into a floating couscous restaurant. It’s a wildly ambitious project, and the increasingly ailing Slimane will need the help of all of his family members in order to pull it off—from his ex-wife and their children, to his longtime lover and her quietly charismatic, determined daughter. But will this immigrant family’s energy and verve be enough to overturn the will of the powerful white townspeople who hold the bureaucratic keys needed to make Slimane’s dream a reality.
Friday: Un Secret (A Secret) A Secret follows the life of a Jewish family in post-World War II Paris. François, the son of Maxime and Tania, is a solitary and imaginative child who invents for himself a brother and the story of his parents’ past. One day, he discovers a dark family secret that shatters his life forever: before the war and well before François’s birth, his father Maxime was married to Hannah with whom he had a son. When the Nazis invaded France, Jewish families and friends were deeply divided on what action to take and how they should live their religion and cultural heritage as Jews.

For more information, contact French professor Mana Derakhshani.

Admission: Free and open to the public

For a campus map, click here.