Thursday, March 31, 2016
WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP
The World Chess Championship 2016 will be held in New York City from November 11 - 30, 2016.
Sergey Karjakin, winner of the just completed Candidates Tournament, will face Magnus Carlson, current world champion.
To clinch victory in the Challenger's Tournament, Karjakin, from Russia, defeated American, Fabiano Caruana, who placed second.
Fabiano, incidentally, learned chess in a program at Temple Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. (Note: my Uncle, Rabbi Eugene Sack was the Rabbi there in the mid 1900's; my father painted the portraits of a number of the Rabbis there, which have been hanging in the Temple lobby; and I was Bar Mitzvahed there.)
Labels: Challenger's Tournament, Chess, Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlson, Sergey Karjakin, World Chess Championship
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
OCULUS RIFT + OCULUS READY COMPUTERS
PRE-ORDERING
THE OCULUS RIFT
The Oculus Rift CV1 (Consumer Version 1) is about to ship. Pre-orders for the Rift and an Oculus Ready computer to operate the Rift are now being accepted.
The Oculus Rift is currently the most advanced, most powerful Virtual Reality system available to consumers. The “system” consists of the Rift (a "headset", "head mounted display" or "HMD"), an Oculus Ready computer, a controller, a position sensor, a remote, and software.
To operate the Rift it must be connected to a computer which -- it is "recommended" -- should have at least the following specs:
Video Card >> NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU >> Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
Memory >> 8GB+ RAM
Video Output Compatible >> HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports >> 3x USB 3.0 ports plus 1x USB 2.0 port
OS Windows >> 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
Discounts are currently being offered for a "bundle" consisting of a Rift and an Oculus Ready computer. The minimum computer configuration can be pre-ordered together with a Rift, for about $1600 (total cost for the bundle). Every order of the Rift includes a headset, sensor, remote, cables, Xbox controller, and "Lucky’s Tale".
It may be wise, especially if you wish to develop your own applications for the Rift, to use a computer which is more powerful than the minimum configuration. It might make sense, for example, to get more than 8GB memory, to get OS 10, and to get lots and lots of disk space. There are more powerful CPU's than the i5, and more powerful graphics cards than the 970. You may also want USB ports left over, after you connect the Rift.
The Rift and the computer can be pre-ordered from OCULUS or from one of its partners. As of March 29, they anticipate new orders will ship the Rift in July; (shipping the computers should be possible in just a week or so).
The Rift can be ordered from OCULUS here:
or more directly here:
On this page, there is a download for a program that will check the computer you are using and will tell you what features are OK and what features are not powerful enough to run the Rift.
An Oculus Ready computer can be purchased from ASUS, DELL or ALIENWARE. (Dell also sells Alienware computers.) There may be a discount when pre-ordering a Rift and an Oculus Ready Computer at the same time. However, you may need to obtain a "coupon," an e-mail, or something similar (verifying the Rift pre-order) from Oculus to use for the computer purchase to get the best discount "bundle" price.
There are lots of options, so make sure before you checkout from your cart that you have exactly want you want.
There are lots of options, so make sure before you checkout from your cart that you have exactly want you want.
ALIENWARE
DELL
ASUS
It is also possible to obtain a Rift/Computer bundle from Oculus' retail partners, Microsoft, Best Buy and Amazon.
MICROSOFT
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/categoryID.71021100
BEST BUY
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/oculus-rift-virtual-reality-headset-alienware-area-51-series-desktop-package/9999260600050004.p?id=pcmprd259000050004&skuId=9999260600050004
MICROSOFT
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/categoryID.71021100
BEST BUY
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/oculus-rift-virtual-reality-headset-alienware-area-51-series-desktop-package/9999260600050004.p?id=pcmprd259000050004&skuId=9999260600050004
AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/Oculus-Rift-Certified-G11CD-WS51-Desktop-Bundle/dp/B01BHFI4XG
http://www.amazon.com/Oculus-Rift-Certified-G11CD-WS51-Desktop-Bundle/dp/B01BHFI4XG
MORE POSSIBILITIES FROM AMAZON
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW FOR
OCULUS READY COMPUTERS & BUNDLES
AGAIN
There are lots of options,
so make sure before you checkout with your cart
that you have exactly want you want.
MORE ABOUT THE RIFT!
Note: These pages are EN-US. Also, pages for setup and "experiences" may change frequently after April 2016, once Rifts are shipped and usage rises.
OCULUS RIFT SETUP PAGE
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/setup/
OCULUS RIFT "EXPERIENCES" -- AVAILABLE APPS
https://www2.oculus.com/experiences/rift/
If you want to create applications or videos for Rift, or just understand Virtual Reality, it may be worth while to become an "Oculus developer" (it's free) and check out the Oculus documentation.
OCULUS HOME PAGE
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/
OCULUS DEVELOPER SITE
https://developer.oculus.com/
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/setup/
OCULUS RIFT "EXPERIENCES" -- AVAILABLE APPS
https://www2.oculus.com/experiences/rift/
If you want to create applications or videos for Rift, or just understand Virtual Reality, it may be worth while to become an "Oculus developer" (it's free) and check out the Oculus documentation.
OCULUS HOME PAGE
https://www.oculus.com/en-us/
OCULUS DEVELOPER SITE
https://developer.oculus.com/
Labels: Alienware, Amazon, Asus, Best Buy, DELL, Microsoft, Oculus, Oculus Ready, Oculus Ready computer, Oculus Rift, Rift computer bundle, Virtual Reality
Sunday, March 27, 2016
FULL BODY REMOTE COMMUNICATION - "HOLOPORTATION"
Microsoft has made great progress developing technology to make live, remote, virtual full body image display and communication effective. The image can be viewed in a HoloLens; creating the image requires scanning the remote image with multiple cameras.
Here are two related websites at Microsoft:
HOLOPORTATION TECHNOLOGY HOME PAGE
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/holoportation/
MS RESEARCH - INTERACTIVE 3D TECHNOLOGY (i3D) GROUP
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/i3d/
Labels: 3D, Hololens, holoportation, interactive, Microsoft, Microsoft Research
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
SONNET SLAM - APRIL 22, 2016 CENTRAL PARK
THE SIXTH ANNUAL
SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY
SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY
SONNET SLAM
CENTRAL PARK
APRIL 22, 2016 1-4 PM
rain or shine
The Sixth Annual Shakepeare's Birthday Sonnet Slam, produced by Willful Pictures, will be held in New York's Central Park on Friday, April 22, 2016 from 1 to 4 PM.
Shakespeare was baptised on April 26, 1564. As he was most likely born a few days earlier, April 23 is often presumed to be his birthday. He died on April 23, 2016; that would make him just 52 years old.
Celebrating his birthday (and this year one day before the 400th anniversary of his death) there is an annual, public, free reading of all 154 poems published together and known as Shakespeare's sonnets. It is free to attend and anyone can register to perform. The performance is efficient -- each reader simply reads their assigned sonnet; 14 lines takes about a minute. That's 154 sonnets in 3 hours or about 51 sonnets an hour.
NOTE: In this collection of 154 poems, most of the poems are in 14 lines, with three quatrains (rhymed ABAB CDCD EFEF ) and a couplet (rhymed GG) all in iambic pentameter. Poem # 126 has only 12 lines and a different rhyming scheme than the rest of the poems. Some purists could argue there are 153 sonnets in this bunch, and one outlier poem.
In addition to these poems, Shakespeare wrote other sonnets! There are several poems in sonnet form in the plays, sometimes shared between characters. Probably the most famous of these is the dialog between Romeo and Juliet when they first meet in Act I Scene 5, beginning
Romeo: "If I profane with my unworthiest hand"
To watch and listen, just come to the bandshell in Central Park between 1 and 4. (*) It's free!
(*And if you're there around 1:30 -- say 1:15 to 1:45 -- you'll see me performing #27 "Weary with toil...", but come at the start and stay 'til the end!)
To register to read a poem in the slam go to the website:
Note: sooner is better: once all 154 sonnets have been taken the opportunity to read is (sort of) over; (but you can still be a Stand-by Reader, if any scheduled reader is missing -- just register with the staff when you arrive, preferable at noon).
For early registration there is a minimum $10 contribution. (They accept bigger contributions for some extra perks.)
There is no audition, age limit, nationality or other similar requirements. The basic requirement is just that if you have gotten a sonnet to read, be there at the slam!
Famous actors, amateurs, children, people using sign language, well aged people, and lots of other types have all read sonnets. They can be performed from memory or read.
It is simply a celebration of Shakespeare and his sonnets. For all!
And MORE!
On Tuesday March 22 at 6 PM there will be a
CRUSH A CUP SONNET SLAM MIXER
YOU ARE INVITED!
For more information...
For more information...
VIDEOS
INSTAGRAM
TWITTER
@sonnetslam
Here are some interviews from prior years with organizer Melinda Hall,
an actress and director
(Remember the dates they mention are NOT this year.
THIS YEAR it's Friday, April 22, 2016)
Labels: 400th anniversary, Central Park, Melinda Hall, Shakespeare, Sonnet Slam, sonnets, Will
Thursday, March 17, 2016
JULIE DELPY interview in VR VIDEO... and LOLO review
CONVERSATION WITH JULIE DELPY
Julie Delpy's LOLO, screened at the RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH FILMS, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is a delightful, humorous, romantic(*), romantic comedy.
(* Note: not every "romantic comedy" is particularly romantic these days. This one is.)
(* Note: not every "romantic comedy" is particularly romantic these days. This one is.)
Julie Delpy as Violette and Dany Boon as Jean-Rene
LOLO
Photo by David Koskas
Violette is looking for love and romance and more. Her son is Lolo. (Without giving anything away, note that Lolo is the title character.)
Vincent Lacoste as Lolo
LOLO
Photo by David Koskas
Julie wrote and directed the film, and plays Violette. Lolo is played by a terrific young actor, Vincent Lacoste. Violette's somewhat naive, geeky lover is played by Dany Blom, a noted French actor, director and producer. Violette's best friend is played by Karin Viard (who also appears in 21 Nights With Pattie at this year's RENDEZ-VOUS).
The story is mischievious(**) , and we discover at the end that it is making a more profound statement than we had realized.
(** A somewhat off-topic note on American usage: I use "mischievious" intentionally - rather than "mischievous" - to mean a deliberately humorous use of mischievous behavior. Lolo is mischievous. Julie's story uses mischievous behavour mischieviously.)
Julie Delpy as Violette
LOLO
Photo by David Koskas
I talked with Julie about LOLO, about her film studies, about music in film, her work with Godard as a young actress, and many other topics.
CONVERSATION WITH JULIE DELPY
ON VIDEO
ON VIDEO
PLUS 3D AND 360 VIRTUAL REALITY
FOR CARDBOARD AND GEAR VR
Here, first, is a 360 video showing the start of the conversation.
(On a COMPUTER, grab the video and move it to look around at the scene; on a SMARTPHONE or CARDBOARD or GEAR VR, turn your head to look around; if you don't see everything at first, watch it again!)
360 VIDEO - STARTING THE CONVERSATION
LOOK AROUND!
360 VIDEO - STARTING THE CONVERSATION
LOOK AROUND!
TO WATCH IN 360 - panoramic video
On a computer screen grab the screen with your mouse and drag to rotate the view.
CARDBOARD
Click on the three dots in the upper right with your smartphone.
Select the cardboard icon.
Turn your head to view the whole scene.
Replay the video to continue to look around.
USING GEAR VR
Click on the square in the lower right, then on 360 in the lower left.
Note: This is low-res, so it will be grainy in Gear VR.
Turn your head to view the whole scene.
Replay the video to continue to look around.
Below is an edited video of our conversation,
to watch in (either) standard 2D or in 3D.
CONVERSATION WITH JULIE DELPY
2D VERSION
CONVERSATION WITH JULIE DELPY
3D VERSION
TO WATCH IN 3D
On a computer screen this will default to "analglyph" - use red/cyan glasses -
but it is intended to be watched in Google CARDBOARD or GEAR VR:
CARDBOARD
Click on the three dots in the upper right.
USING GEAR VR
Click on the square in the lower right, then on 3D in the lower left.
LOLO - CAST AND CREW
CREW
Director - Julie Delpy
Writer - Julie Delpy, Eugenie Grandval
Producer - Michael Gentile
Cinematographer - Thierry Arbogast AFC
Music - Matthieu Sibony
CAST
Julie Delpy - Violette
Dany Boon - Jean-René Graves
Vincent Lacoste - Eloi ... aka Lolo
Karin Viard - Ariane
LOLO ON IMDB
JULIE DELPY ON IMDB
JULIE DELPY ON WIKIPEDIA
FOR A FULL RECAP OF THE 2016 RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH FILMS:
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/preview-21st-rendez-vous-with-french.html
JULIE DELPY VIDEOS ON AMAZON
JULIE DELPY - MUSIC MUSIC FROM LOLO
JULIE DELPY ON AMAZON - ALL!
SOME JULIE DELPY FILMS
Labels: Dany Boon, director, interview, Julie Delpy, LOLO, Rendez-Vous With French Films, romantic comedy, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Vincent Lacoste, Virtual Reality, VR Video
Friday, March 11, 2016
Review and interview: BANG GANG - A Modern Love Story
BANG GANG
A MODERN LOVE STORY
RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH FILMS 2016
FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
BANG GANG is is the name that a group of high school kids in a coastal resort town in France give themselves to mark their drug and sex parties.
Eva Husson, a French director making her first feature, tells this story dispassionately, neither casting aspersions on the students, nor celebrating them, but rather treating it as "a modern love story."
The film is well shot, nice looking, clearly told, and the acting by all the principals (see cast below) is terrific. You are sure to see much more of these actors in future films.
I talked with director Eva Husson about the film. Here is a part of our conversation.
The video can be watched as a "standard, normal" 2D video (left) or watched in 3D (right) using either Google Cardboard or Gear VR. (Other TV or VR systems capable of watching 3D YouTube videos may also be used.)
Lorenzo Lefebvre and Marilyn Lima
CAST
Alex - Finnegan Oldfield
George - Marilyn Lima
Laetitia - Daisy Broom
Gabriel - Lorenzo Lefebvre
Nikita - Fred Hotier
CREW
Director - Eva Husson
Screenwriter- Eva Husson
Cinematographer - Mattias Troelstrup
RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH FILMS 2016
Complete Program
Labels: A Modern Love Story, Bang Gang, Eva Husson, film society of lincoln center, Lorenzo Lefebvre, Marilym Lima, QPORIT, Quick Previews Of Random Interesting Things, Rendez-Vous With French Films
Friday, March 04, 2016
Review: VALLEY OF LOVE
VALLEY OF LOVE
Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert
VALLEY OF LOVE
WARNING: Contains spoilers...
Valley of Love takes Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert, playing Gerard and Isabelle, a formerly married couple, on a trip together to Death Valley because their son, who committed suicide, said in a letter, possibly after he died, that he would meet them there if they followed the schedule he set out for them.
It’s a preposterous story*, best understood as an acting test: can Gerard Depardieu (whose son actually did die -- of pneumonia after a difficult life) and who is seriously overweight, and Isabelle Huppert (two of the greatest, (and busiest), over 60 actors in France (or the world)) actually make sense of seeming to be a couple and being real in this ridiculous plot.
The answer is, amazingly, they can.
The film is attractively shot, emotionally moving (including the times when you worry whether Gerard the actor as well as Gerard the character can spend days in the hot hot hot sun without collapsing), and interesting (until you think for even a second about what is going on).
(* It's not a problem to "suspend disbelief" and enjoy a ghost story. It is quite different to believe in a realistic social drama in which the characters accept the supernaturally unbelievable premise without dealing effectively with the fact that the basic premise is unbelievably supernatural.)
Written and directed by Guillaume Nicloux.
Starring Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert
VALLEY OF LOVE ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4120210/
GUILLAUME NICLOUX ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0630112
GERARD DEPARDIEU ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4120210/
ISABELLE HUPPERT ON IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4120210/
For the complete schedule of ...
RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA 2016
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/preview-21st-rendez-vous-with-french.html
Labels: Gerard Depardieu, Guillaume Nicloux, Isabelle Huppert, Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, VALLEY OF LOVE
Wednesday, March 02, 2016
Preview/Recap: 21ST RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA - MARCH 3-13, 2016
THE FILM SOCIETY OF
LINCOLN CENTER
UNIFRANCE
21ST RENDEZ-VOUS WITH
FRENCH CINEMA
MARCH 3-13, 2016
Opening Night
The New York Premiere of Guillaume Nicloux’s
Valley of Love
starring Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu
Closing Night
Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Palme d’Or–winning
Dheepan
In person appearances include...
Isabelle Huppert, Nicloux,
Nabil Ayouch, Emmanuelle Bercot, Julie Delpy,
Emmanuel Finkiel, Louis
Garrel, Gregoire Hetzel,
Eva Husson, Maïwenn, Nicolas Pariser,
Melvil Poupaud,
Rudi Rosenberg, Alice Winocour,
and more
FILM DESCRIPTIONS & SCREENING
SCHEDULE
Valley of Love
Guillaume Nicloux, France/Belgium, 2015, DCP, 92m
English and French with English subtitles
Thursday, March 3, 6:00pm
Opening Night
(Intro only by Isabelle Huppert and Guillaume
Nicloux)
Isabelle Huppert and Gerard Depardieu
VALLEY OF LOVE
VALLEY OF LOVE
Guillaume Nicloux’s sui generis, elegiac road movie puts a meta twist on a familiar setup: titans Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert star as famous French actors Gérard and Isabelle, a long-divorced couple whose son Michael has committed suicide six months prior to their Californian rendezvous in Death Valley, occasioned by an enigmatic letter from Michael that seems to have been written some time after his death. The letter asks them to visit a series of sites in the area; at the end of this tour, Michael claims he will appear before them. What follows is an utterly singular trip of a film, by turns melancholic and funny, self-reflexive and surreal. In their first film together since Maurice Pialat’s Loulou in 1980, Depardieu and Huppert astound with their enthralling portrayal of grieving parents who, to an ambiguous degree, appear to be versions of themselves, making for a tour de force as moving as it is complex. A Strand Releasing release.
>>> QPORIT Review: VALLEY OF LOVE
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/review-valley-of-love.html
Dheepan
Jacques Audiard, France, 2015, DCP, 109m
French with English subtitles
Jacques Audiard, France, 2015, DCP, 109m
French with English subtitles
Closing Night
Sunday, March 13, 6:00pm and 8:30pm
Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for this daring, genre-bending portrait of three Sri Lankan refugees—Dheepan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan), Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan), and Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby)—who form a fake family unit to emigrate. When they find themselves living together in a violent, gang-dominated housing project outside Paris, they start to reevaluate the terms of their intimacy. Like his character, the actor and novelist Jesuthasan was a member of the militant nationalist army LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) before fleeing the country and settling into a series of odd jobs in Paris, while eventually renouncing all ties to the Tigers. When, in its bloody last act, his character has to fall back on his military training, Dheepan becomes something darker: a harrowing reckoning with the past. A Sundance Selects release.
21 Nights with Pattie / 21 nuits avec Pattie
Jean-Marie & Arnaud Larrieu, France, 2015, DCP, 115m
French with English subtitles
The Larrieu brothers make oddball, tonally mixed comedies unlike anything else in French cinema today. In their latest, a slightly prim woman Caroline (Isabelle Carré) arrives in a small village in the Pyrénées to bury her estranged mother. There, she befriends Pattie (Karin Viard), who offers tales of her sexual adventures with the local men, including a priapic half-man, half-beast creature (Denis Lavant). Caroline’s ongoing debate between pride and pleasure is just one link in a chain of increasingly wild events: the mysterious disappearance of her mother’s body, the ensuing surreal police investigation, and some shocking revelations about her mother’s former lover, who may or not be the writer J.M.G. Le Clézio—played to perfection by André Dussollier.
U.S. Premiere
Friday, March 11, 1:30pm
Saturday, March 12, 6:45pm
The Apaches / Des Apaches
Nassim Amaouche, France, 2015, DCP, 97m
French with English subtitles
Les Inrocks accounted for the six years it took Nassim Amaouche to release his second feature by calling him “a director with a temperament as patient, roving and reflective as his films.” He stars as Samir, a young French-Algerian man lured by a dubious “family” lawyer (André Dussollier) into making an occult business deal within a similarly marginalized setting: one of Paris’s largest and most diverse Kabyle communities. Having been drawn into the family bar business by his estranged father, Samir still agonizes over the memory of his late mother, while falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious single mom (Laetitia Casta). The Apaches is a delicate movie that doubles as a tense negotiation drama and a quiet, reflective memory play.
Friday, March 11, 1:30pm
Saturday, March 12, 6:45pm
The Apaches / Des Apaches
Nassim Amaouche, France, 2015, DCP, 97m
French with English subtitles
Les Inrocks accounted for the six years it took Nassim Amaouche to release his second feature by calling him “a director with a temperament as patient, roving and reflective as his films.” He stars as Samir, a young French-Algerian man lured by a dubious “family” lawyer (André Dussollier) into making an occult business deal within a similarly marginalized setting: one of Paris’s largest and most diverse Kabyle communities. Having been drawn into the family bar business by his estranged father, Samir still agonizes over the memory of his late mother, while falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious single mom (Laetitia Casta). The Apaches is a delicate movie that doubles as a tense negotiation drama and a quiet, reflective memory play.
U.S. Premiere
Friday, March 4, 4:00pm
Sunday, March 13, 1:30pm
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
Eva Husson, France, 2016, DCP, 98m
French with English subtitles
Eva Husson’s debut feature, shot and set in the wealthy coastal suburbs of Biarritz, is an unapologetically blissed-out, frankly explicit anthology of the sexual experiments a cluster of teenagers undertake over the course of one summer. Determined to keep the attentions of her favorite boy Alex (Finnegan Oldfield), George (Marilyn Lima) encourages her group of horny friends and acquaintances to start hosting elaborate, sunlight-drenched, EDM-filled swingers parties. Husson doesn’t ignore the students who abstain, but she’s utterly entranced by the excesses, risks, and temptations of George’s universe—a pulsating, slow-motion bacchanal pitched somewhere between the world of Spring Breakers and that of Larry Clark. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release.
Friday, March 4, 4:00pm
Sunday, March 13, 1:30pm
Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
Eva Husson, France, 2016, DCP, 98m
French with English subtitles
Eva Husson’s debut feature, shot and set in the wealthy coastal suburbs of Biarritz, is an unapologetically blissed-out, frankly explicit anthology of the sexual experiments a cluster of teenagers undertake over the course of one summer. Determined to keep the attentions of her favorite boy Alex (Finnegan Oldfield), George (Marilyn Lima) encourages her group of horny friends and acquaintances to start hosting elaborate, sunlight-drenched, EDM-filled swingers parties. Husson doesn’t ignore the students who abstain, but she’s utterly entranced by the excesses, risks, and temptations of George’s universe—a pulsating, slow-motion bacchanal pitched somewhere between the world of Spring Breakers and that of Larry Clark. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release.
U.S. Premiere
Friday, March 4, 9:15pm (Q&A with Eva Husson)
Sunday, March 6, 1:00pm (Q&A with Eva Husson)
>>>QPORIT Review & interview with Eva Husson:
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/bang-gang.html
Dark Inclusion / Diamant noir
Arthur Harari, France/Belgium, 2016, DCP, 115m
French with English subtitles
Friday, March 4, 9:15pm (Q&A with Eva Husson)
Sunday, March 6, 1:00pm (Q&A with Eva Husson)
>>>QPORIT Review & interview with Eva Husson:
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/bang-gang.html
Dark Inclusion / Diamant noir
Arthur Harari, France/Belgium, 2016, DCP, 115m
French with English subtitles
"You want them to pay? You have to be
lucid, cool, precise. You go there, you see, and you take—that’s payback."
Arthur Harari’s first feature is a poised, stylish, and utterly assured revenge
thriller in which violence erupts suddenly amid tense, hushed stretches of
talk. Pier Ulmann (Niels Schneider) comes from a family of powerful diamond
dealers based in Anvers. After his estranged father’s death, he vows vengeance
against his relatives who had abandoned him and returns to the business with an
elaborate robbery in mind. Featuring menacing tracking shots; a cool, metallic
color palette; surprising third-act reversals; and a terrific ensemble cast, Dark
Inclusion is a movie precisely attuned to the logistical and moral
complexities that accompany lives of luxurious crime.
U.S. Premiere
Thursday, March 10, 1:30pm
Saturday, March 12, 9:15pm (Q&A with Arthur Harari)
Thursday, March 10, 1:30pm
Saturday, March 12, 9:15pm (Q&A with Arthur Harari)
A Decent Man / Je ne suis pas un salaud
Emmanuel Finkiel, France, 2015, DCP, 111m
French with English subtitles
“I am not a bastard!” The literal French translation of the title of Emmanuel Finkiel’s taut, intelligent morality play captures its tone perhaps better than its American name. In the film’s first act, Eddy (Nicolas Duvauchelle) is in a position of strength. Having just been injured in a mugging, he’s earned the sympathy and attention of his estranged family and gotten back on his feet. The same cannot be said for Ahmed (Driss Ramdi), whose life starts falling apart after he’s wrongly accused of the crime. When the case against Ahmed starts to unravel, Eddy has to go back on the defensive…
Emmanuel Finkiel, France, 2015, DCP, 111m
French with English subtitles
“I am not a bastard!” The literal French translation of the title of Emmanuel Finkiel’s taut, intelligent morality play captures its tone perhaps better than its American name. In the film’s first act, Eddy (Nicolas Duvauchelle) is in a position of strength. Having just been injured in a mugging, he’s earned the sympathy and attention of his estranged family and gotten back on his feet. The same cannot be said for Ahmed (Driss Ramdi), whose life starts falling apart after he’s wrongly accused of the crime. When the case against Ahmed starts to unravel, Eddy has to go back on the defensive…
U.S. Premiere
Saturday, March 5, 1:00pm
Monday, March 7, 1:45pm
Disorder
Alice Winocour, France/Belgium, 2015, DCP, 101m
French with English subtitles
Alice Winocour’s follow-up to Augustine (Rendez-Vous 2013)—her study of the 19th-century neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot’s fraught relationship with one of his hysteria patients—is another finely tuned drama of unstable intimacy and mental imbalance. Having just returned from Afghanistan, Vincent (Matthias Schoenaerts) suffers from night terrors, pummeling headaches, and bouts of paranoia. To distract himself, he gets a job working security at the extravagant chateau of a Lebanese financier, whose beautiful wife (Diane Kruger) he’s soon hired to protect after the husband goes away on business. Disorder evolves from an exercise in nervous, slow-burn suspense into a tense domestic thriller. A Sundance Selects release.
Saturday, March 5, 6:30pm (Q&A with Alice Winocour)
Monday, March 7, 4:00pm
Fatima
Philippe Faucon, France, 2015, DCP, 79m
French and Arabic with English subtitles
Middle-aged single mother Fatima (Soria Zeroual) lives with her two teenage daughters and works cleaning jobs to pay their way through school. Inspired by a true story and the poetry of the North African writer Fatima Elayoubi, who immigrated knowing very little French and slowly taught herself the language, Faucon’s eighth feature—winner of the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for Best French Film—is a patient, reflective study of a woman pressured by her children and her neighbors alike to assimilate into a culture of which she’s wary. Despite the display of everyday racism, both veiled and overt; internal domestic disputes; and external gestures of inhospitality, Fatima offers an uplifting experience and one of recent French cinema’s most trenchant and moving portraits of immigrant experience.
Friday, March 4, 2:00pm
Sunday, March 13, 4:00pm
The Great Game / Le Grand jeu
Nicolas Pariser, France, 2015, DCP, 100m
French with English subtitles
Pierre (Melvil Poupaud), a onetime darling novelist disgusted with the publishing world, lets a duplicitous government insider (André Dussollier) tempt him into ghostwriting a manifesto designed to transform the landscape of French public opinion—a shift with risky consequences for the activist (Clémence Poésy) with whom he soon becomes involved. Nicolas Pariser’s debut feature is an elegant political thriller that makes much use of its stellar cast, particularly with the brittle, uneasy rapport between Poupaud—the soulful young man at the center of Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale and Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways—and Dussollier, a resourceful and protean actor who commits to his character’s malevolence with relish. U.S. Premiere
Friday, March 4, 6:30pm (Q&A with Nicolas Pariser and Melvil Poupaud)
Saturday, March 5, 1:00pm
Monday, March 7, 1:45pm
Disorder
Alice Winocour, France/Belgium, 2015, DCP, 101m
French with English subtitles
Alice Winocour’s follow-up to Augustine (Rendez-Vous 2013)—her study of the 19th-century neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot’s fraught relationship with one of his hysteria patients—is another finely tuned drama of unstable intimacy and mental imbalance. Having just returned from Afghanistan, Vincent (Matthias Schoenaerts) suffers from night terrors, pummeling headaches, and bouts of paranoia. To distract himself, he gets a job working security at the extravagant chateau of a Lebanese financier, whose beautiful wife (Diane Kruger) he’s soon hired to protect after the husband goes away on business. Disorder evolves from an exercise in nervous, slow-burn suspense into a tense domestic thriller. A Sundance Selects release.
Saturday, March 5, 6:30pm (Q&A with Alice Winocour)
Monday, March 7, 4:00pm
Fatima
Philippe Faucon, France, 2015, DCP, 79m
French and Arabic with English subtitles
Middle-aged single mother Fatima (Soria Zeroual) lives with her two teenage daughters and works cleaning jobs to pay their way through school. Inspired by a true story and the poetry of the North African writer Fatima Elayoubi, who immigrated knowing very little French and slowly taught herself the language, Faucon’s eighth feature—winner of the prestigious Louis Delluc Prize for Best French Film—is a patient, reflective study of a woman pressured by her children and her neighbors alike to assimilate into a culture of which she’s wary. Despite the display of everyday racism, both veiled and overt; internal domestic disputes; and external gestures of inhospitality, Fatima offers an uplifting experience and one of recent French cinema’s most trenchant and moving portraits of immigrant experience.
Friday, March 4, 2:00pm
Sunday, March 13, 4:00pm
The Great Game / Le Grand jeu
Nicolas Pariser, France, 2015, DCP, 100m
French with English subtitles
Pierre (Melvil Poupaud), a onetime darling novelist disgusted with the publishing world, lets a duplicitous government insider (André Dussollier) tempt him into ghostwriting a manifesto designed to transform the landscape of French public opinion—a shift with risky consequences for the activist (Clémence Poésy) with whom he soon becomes involved. Nicolas Pariser’s debut feature is an elegant political thriller that makes much use of its stellar cast, particularly with the brittle, uneasy rapport between Poupaud—the soulful young man at the center of Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale and Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways—and Dussollier, a resourceful and protean actor who commits to his character’s malevolence with relish. U.S. Premiere
Friday, March 4, 6:30pm (Q&A with Nicolas Pariser and Melvil Poupaud)
Saturday, March 5, 9:15pm (Q&A with Nicolas Pariser and
Melvil Poupaud)
Lolo
Julie Delpy, France, 2015, DCP, 99m
French with English subtitles
Writer, director, actor, composer: Julie Delpy is one of current French cinema’s great renaissance talents. In her new movie, a four-string black comedy that develops on the thinking at work in her recent 2 Days in New York, a world-weary fashionista (Delpy) finds her happy new relationship with a divorced, slightly unpolished computer programmer (Dany Boon) threatened by the machinations of her wheeling, malevolent son (Vincent Lacoste). Delpy is a filmmaker with a wise, prickly comic sensibility, and her movies often slide—like screwball comedies—from cerebral verbal banter to outright farce. Lolo is no exception, although it’s also her darkest, riskiest, and most startling movie to date. A FilmRise release.
U.S. Premiere
Tuesday, March 8, 6:30pm (Q&A with Julie Delpy and composer Mathieu Lamboley)
Wednesday, March 9, 9:30pm (Introduction by Julie Delpy)
>>> QPORIT Review: LOLO & Video (VR) interview with Julie Delpy
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/lolo-and-julie-delpy.html
Much Loved
Nabil Ayouch, France/Morocco, 2015, DCP, 104m
Arabic and French with English subtitles
“What do you know about men?” a voice asks over the opening credits of Nabil Ayouch’s provocative portrait of several female sex workers in Marrakech. “Men are like makes [of cars]: high-end, medium, and sons of bitches. All that matters is the cash.” Noha (Loubna Abidar), Randa (Asmaa Lazrak), and Soukaina (Halima Karaouane) are professional, thick-skinned, and practical about their line of work, which ferries them up and down the city’s class ladder and renders them vulnerable to a catalog of possible abuses. Controversially banned in Morocco for its “contempt for moral values,” Much Loved offers such a candid and unblinking picture of a subculture that it’s a perilous job to represent on screen.
Thursday, March 10, 7:00pm
Friday, March 11, 4:00pm
My King / Mon roi
Maïwenn, France, 2015, DCP, 128m
French with English subtitles
Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot, in a performance that won her the Best Actress Award at Cannes) and Georgio (Vincent Cassel) are an odd match—or so Tony’s brother Solal (Louis Garrel) thinks when she tells him that they’re falling quickly, recklessly in love. Actor-director Maïwenn’s fourth feature captures the couple’s tempestuous 10-year relationship in retrospect as a string of flash points, eruptions, betrayals, tender reconciliations, and life-altering decisions. At the center of My King’s wide, expansive frames are Bercot and Cassel for nearly every second of its runtime, and the movie stakes itself on their harrowingly committed, nerve-fraying performances. Maïwenn’s formidable new film is one of French cinema’s most memorable recent amour fous. U.S. Premiere
Wednesday, March 9, 6:30pm (Q&A with Maïwenn and Louis Garrel)
Thursday, March 10, 9:45pm (Introduction by Maïwenn)
The New Kid / Le Nouveau
Rudi Rosenberg, France, 2015, DCP, 81m
French with English subtitles
In this delectable and vivacious debut feature, shy 14-year-old Benoît (Réphaël Ghrenassia) moves to Paris and a new high school, where he’s rejected by his cooler classmates and reluctantly sidelined into a precarious friendship with the “freaks and geeks.” The New Kid is a rare case among coming-of-age movies: a portrait of allegiances made and broken among middle-schoolers that calls special attention to the uglier, less picturesque aspects of passing through puberty. The movie’s rhythm never stalls and its tone stays charmingly light partly thanks to its wonderful cast—a skilled and magnetic group of first-time young actors.
Tuesday, March 8, 6:30pm (Q&A with Julie Delpy and composer Mathieu Lamboley)
Wednesday, March 9, 9:30pm (Introduction by Julie Delpy)
>>> QPORIT Review: LOLO & Video (VR) interview with Julie Delpy
http://qporit.blogspot.com/2016/03/lolo-and-julie-delpy.html
Much Loved
Nabil Ayouch, France/Morocco, 2015, DCP, 104m
Arabic and French with English subtitles
“What do you know about men?” a voice asks over the opening credits of Nabil Ayouch’s provocative portrait of several female sex workers in Marrakech. “Men are like makes [of cars]: high-end, medium, and sons of bitches. All that matters is the cash.” Noha (Loubna Abidar), Randa (Asmaa Lazrak), and Soukaina (Halima Karaouane) are professional, thick-skinned, and practical about their line of work, which ferries them up and down the city’s class ladder and renders them vulnerable to a catalog of possible abuses. Controversially banned in Morocco for its “contempt for moral values,” Much Loved offers such a candid and unblinking picture of a subculture that it’s a perilous job to represent on screen.
Thursday, March 10, 7:00pm
Friday, March 11, 4:00pm
My King / Mon roi
Maïwenn, France, 2015, DCP, 128m
French with English subtitles
Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot, in a performance that won her the Best Actress Award at Cannes) and Georgio (Vincent Cassel) are an odd match—or so Tony’s brother Solal (Louis Garrel) thinks when she tells him that they’re falling quickly, recklessly in love. Actor-director Maïwenn’s fourth feature captures the couple’s tempestuous 10-year relationship in retrospect as a string of flash points, eruptions, betrayals, tender reconciliations, and life-altering decisions. At the center of My King’s wide, expansive frames are Bercot and Cassel for nearly every second of its runtime, and the movie stakes itself on their harrowingly committed, nerve-fraying performances. Maïwenn’s formidable new film is one of French cinema’s most memorable recent amour fous. U.S. Premiere
Wednesday, March 9, 6:30pm (Q&A with Maïwenn and Louis Garrel)
Thursday, March 10, 9:45pm (Introduction by Maïwenn)
The New Kid / Le Nouveau
Rudi Rosenberg, France, 2015, DCP, 81m
French with English subtitles
In this delectable and vivacious debut feature, shy 14-year-old Benoît (Réphaël Ghrenassia) moves to Paris and a new high school, where he’s rejected by his cooler classmates and reluctantly sidelined into a precarious friendship with the “freaks and geeks.” The New Kid is a rare case among coming-of-age movies: a portrait of allegiances made and broken among middle-schoolers that calls special attention to the uglier, less picturesque aspects of passing through puberty. The movie’s rhythm never stalls and its tone stays charmingly light partly thanks to its wonderful cast—a skilled and magnetic group of first-time young actors.
U.S. Premiere
Monday, March 7, 6:30pm (Q&A with Rudi Rosenberg)
Wednesday, March 9, 1:30pm
Parisienne / Peur de rien
Danielle Arbid, France, 2015, DCP, 120m
French with English subtitles
The French title of Danielle Arbid’s fourth feature, a luminous study of a young Lebanese woman restlessly accommodating herself to her new home in Paris during the mid-’90s, translates to “fear of nothing.” Lina might sometimes be afraid, but—as played by the great young actress Manal Issa—she’s also intrepid, adventurous, confident, independent, and breathtakingly self-possessed. Parisienne follows her as she flees the abusive uncle in whose care she’s been placed, flits from bed to bed, passes in and out of university classes, makes friends on both extreme sides of the political spectrum, takes a handful of lovers, and, in the movie’s climax, fights a legal battle to stay in the city that’s become hers.
Thursday, March 10, 4:00pm (Q&A with Danielle Arbid)
Saturday, March 12, 1:30pm (Q&A with Danielle Arbid)
Standing Tall / La Tête haute
Emmanuelle Bercot, France, 2015, DCP, 119m
French with English subtitles
Emmanuelle Bercot’s fourth feature, which opened last year’s Cannes, is a candid, sympathetic, impassioned study of a teenage delinquent surrounded by adults both callous and supportive. On the latter side is a warm-hearted juvenile court judge (Catherine Deneuve) and a devoted social worker (Benoît Magimel); on the other side stand, it can seem, most other authority figures. Sixteen-year-old Malony (Rod Paradot) is clearly a victim of his circumstances and poor parenting from his basket case of a mother (Sara Forestier), but he’s also a bully, a brute, and a sexually violent offender. Part of the strength of Standing Tall is that it refuses to entirely absolve its central character; instead, it counts on Paradot, a powerful new actor, to render him as a convincingly troubled, tempestuous soul. A Cohen Media release.
Sunday, March 6, 3:30pm (Q&A with Emmanuelle Bercot)
Sunday, March 6, 9:00pm (Introduction by Emmanuelle Bercot)
Story of Judas / Histoire de Judas
Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, France, 2015, DCP, 99m
French with English subtitles
French-Algerian director-actor Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche boldly renders the final days of Jesus of Nazareth from the perspective of Judas Iscariot in this utterly novel reenvisioning of the key biblical tale. Ameur-Zaïmeche himself stars as Judas, Jesus’s closest disciple, as the two men find themselves swept up in political tumult amid tensions between the Jews and the Romans over the escalating popularity of the man who claims to be the Son of God. Story of Judas is both strikingly stylized (with shimmering, physical cinematography by Irina Lubtchansky, daughter of the late, legendary DP William) and compelling in its engagement with the myth of Judas, interweaving recent revelations about the role he may or may not have played in the real-life Passion story. The result is a ravishing and genuinely new addition to the Jesus film canon. Winner of a Jury Prize in the Forum section at last year’s Berlinale. U.S. Premiere
Saturday, March 5, 3:45pm
Tuesday, March 8, 1:45pm
Summertime / La Belle saison
Catherine Corsini, France/Belgium, 2015, DCP, 105m
French with English subtitles
Acclaimed director Catherine Corsini has made melodramas that range in tone from the bleak and violent to the tender and emotionally warm. At first glance, her Locarno prize-winning new film is one of her brightest and most bucolic. Soon after Delphine (Izïa Higelin) moves from her conservative parents’ farm near Limoges to Paris in 1971, she meets the older Carole (Cécile de France), a feminist organizer with whom she embarks on a passionate, mutually invigorating love affair. When a family sickness pulls Delphine back to the farm, Carole has to decide whether to follow her into hostile territory—and Summertime becomes something more complicated and fraught than its seductive, luminous visual palette initially suggests. A Strand Releasing release.
Monday, March 7, 6:30pm (Q&A with Rudi Rosenberg)
Wednesday, March 9, 1:30pm
Parisienne / Peur de rien
Danielle Arbid, France, 2015, DCP, 120m
French with English subtitles
The French title of Danielle Arbid’s fourth feature, a luminous study of a young Lebanese woman restlessly accommodating herself to her new home in Paris during the mid-’90s, translates to “fear of nothing.” Lina might sometimes be afraid, but—as played by the great young actress Manal Issa—she’s also intrepid, adventurous, confident, independent, and breathtakingly self-possessed. Parisienne follows her as she flees the abusive uncle in whose care she’s been placed, flits from bed to bed, passes in and out of university classes, makes friends on both extreme sides of the political spectrum, takes a handful of lovers, and, in the movie’s climax, fights a legal battle to stay in the city that’s become hers.
Thursday, March 10, 4:00pm (Q&A with Danielle Arbid)
Saturday, March 12, 1:30pm (Q&A with Danielle Arbid)
Standing Tall / La Tête haute
Emmanuelle Bercot, France, 2015, DCP, 119m
French with English subtitles
Emmanuelle Bercot’s fourth feature, which opened last year’s Cannes, is a candid, sympathetic, impassioned study of a teenage delinquent surrounded by adults both callous and supportive. On the latter side is a warm-hearted juvenile court judge (Catherine Deneuve) and a devoted social worker (Benoît Magimel); on the other side stand, it can seem, most other authority figures. Sixteen-year-old Malony (Rod Paradot) is clearly a victim of his circumstances and poor parenting from his basket case of a mother (Sara Forestier), but he’s also a bully, a brute, and a sexually violent offender. Part of the strength of Standing Tall is that it refuses to entirely absolve its central character; instead, it counts on Paradot, a powerful new actor, to render him as a convincingly troubled, tempestuous soul. A Cohen Media release.
Sunday, March 6, 3:30pm (Q&A with Emmanuelle Bercot)
Sunday, March 6, 9:00pm (Introduction by Emmanuelle Bercot)
Story of Judas / Histoire de Judas
Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, France, 2015, DCP, 99m
French with English subtitles
French-Algerian director-actor Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche boldly renders the final days of Jesus of Nazareth from the perspective of Judas Iscariot in this utterly novel reenvisioning of the key biblical tale. Ameur-Zaïmeche himself stars as Judas, Jesus’s closest disciple, as the two men find themselves swept up in political tumult amid tensions between the Jews and the Romans over the escalating popularity of the man who claims to be the Son of God. Story of Judas is both strikingly stylized (with shimmering, physical cinematography by Irina Lubtchansky, daughter of the late, legendary DP William) and compelling in its engagement with the myth of Judas, interweaving recent revelations about the role he may or may not have played in the real-life Passion story. The result is a ravishing and genuinely new addition to the Jesus film canon. Winner of a Jury Prize in the Forum section at last year’s Berlinale. U.S. Premiere
Saturday, March 5, 3:45pm
Tuesday, March 8, 1:45pm
Summertime / La Belle saison
Catherine Corsini, France/Belgium, 2015, DCP, 105m
French with English subtitles
Acclaimed director Catherine Corsini has made melodramas that range in tone from the bleak and violent to the tender and emotionally warm. At first glance, her Locarno prize-winning new film is one of her brightest and most bucolic. Soon after Delphine (Izïa Higelin) moves from her conservative parents’ farm near Limoges to Paris in 1971, she meets the older Carole (Cécile de France), a feminist organizer with whom she embarks on a passionate, mutually invigorating love affair. When a family sickness pulls Delphine back to the farm, Carole has to decide whether to follow her into hostile territory—and Summertime becomes something more complicated and fraught than its seductive, luminous visual palette initially suggests. A Strand Releasing release.
U.S. Premiere
Tuesday, March 8, 9:15pm (Introduction by composer Gregoire Hetzel)
Saturday, March 12, 4:30pm
Three Sisters / Les Trois soeurs
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France, 2015, DCP, 110m
French with English subtitles
“Life is hard. It seems to many of us dull and hopeless; but yet we must admit that it goes on getting clearer and easier, and it looks as though the time were not far off when it'll be full of happiness.” For her latest project, commissioned by Arte and starring members of the Comédie-Française, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi shot an idiosyncratic, half-modernized adaptation of one of Chekhov’s greatest, most expansively melancholy plays. The three sisters of the title—two unmarried, one unhappily married—congregate in their family’s ancestral house and, along with the additional soldiers, debtors, pensioners, and spouses who populate the play, struggle to give their futures a shape. From a translation by André Markowicz and Françoise Morvan.
Tuesday, March 8, 9:15pm (Introduction by composer Gregoire Hetzel)
Saturday, March 12, 4:30pm
Three Sisters / Les Trois soeurs
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France, 2015, DCP, 110m
French with English subtitles
“Life is hard. It seems to many of us dull and hopeless; but yet we must admit that it goes on getting clearer and easier, and it looks as though the time were not far off when it'll be full of happiness.” For her latest project, commissioned by Arte and starring members of the Comédie-Française, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi shot an idiosyncratic, half-modernized adaptation of one of Chekhov’s greatest, most expansively melancholy plays. The three sisters of the title—two unmarried, one unhappily married—congregate in their family’s ancestral house and, along with the additional soldiers, debtors, pensioners, and spouses who populate the play, struggle to give their futures a shape. From a translation by André Markowicz and Françoise Morvan.
U.S. Premiere
Wednesday, March 9, 3:30pm (Q&A with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
Friday, March 11, 6:30pm (Q&A with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
Two Friends / Deux amis
Louis Garrel, France, 2015, DCP, 102m
French with English subtitles
One of France’s most distinguished and recognizable actors for over a decade now, Louis Garrel makes his much-anticipated feature-length directorial debut with this clever and moving twist on the ménage à trois. Garrel stars as Abel, a gas-station attendant with literary ambitions, an underage girlfriend, and an always-active libido. Abel is all too accustomed to seducing away the crushes of his best friend, movie-extra Vincent (Vincent Macaigne)—but when an incognito convict working at a pastry counter in the Gare du Nord (Golshifteh Farahani) enters Vincent’s orbit (and, by extension, Abel’s), a comic, manic, and eminently romantic love triangle soon unfolds. Co-written by his frequent collaborator Christophe Honoré, Two Friends marks an auspicious and heartfelt first feature for Garrel, striking a pitch-perfect balance between tragedy and charm.
Wednesday, March 9, 3:30pm (Q&A with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
Friday, March 11, 6:30pm (Q&A with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
Two Friends / Deux amis
Louis Garrel, France, 2015, DCP, 102m
French with English subtitles
One of France’s most distinguished and recognizable actors for over a decade now, Louis Garrel makes his much-anticipated feature-length directorial debut with this clever and moving twist on the ménage à trois. Garrel stars as Abel, a gas-station attendant with literary ambitions, an underage girlfriend, and an always-active libido. Abel is all too accustomed to seducing away the crushes of his best friend, movie-extra Vincent (Vincent Macaigne)—but when an incognito convict working at a pastry counter in the Gare du Nord (Golshifteh Farahani) enters Vincent’s orbit (and, by extension, Abel’s), a comic, manic, and eminently romantic love triangle soon unfolds. Co-written by his frequent collaborator Christophe Honoré, Two Friends marks an auspicious and heartfelt first feature for Garrel, striking a pitch-perfect balance between tragedy and charm.
U.S. Premiere
Sunday, March 6, 6:30pm (Q&A with Louis Garrel)
Monday, March 7, 9:00pm (Introduction by Louis Garrel)
Winter Song / Chant d’hiver
Otar Iosseliani, France, 2015, DCP, 117m
French with English subtitles
There’s no mistaking the tone and structure of a film by the 81-year-old Georgian director Otar Iosseliani: caustic, mordant, detached, extremely funny, and dizzyingly panoramic. Like several of his earlier films, Winter Song doesn’t center on a single figure so much as a dense cluster of interrelated characters, all united by objects (an executed aristocrat’s skull), places (the apartment building where most of them live), historical events (from the French Revolution to the Russo-Georgian War), and pure coincidence. An aging upper-crust patriarch burning his letters; a tramp hoping to avoid the advances of a steamroller; an 18th-century nobleman who insists on taking his pipe to the guillotine: Winter Song is a well-stocked encyclopedia of human variety, eccentricity, and folly, elevated by an exquisite cast that include Rufus, Pierre Étaix, and Mathieu Amalric.
Sunday, March 6, 6:30pm (Q&A with Louis Garrel)
Monday, March 7, 9:00pm (Introduction by Louis Garrel)
Winter Song / Chant d’hiver
Otar Iosseliani, France, 2015, DCP, 117m
French with English subtitles
There’s no mistaking the tone and structure of a film by the 81-year-old Georgian director Otar Iosseliani: caustic, mordant, detached, extremely funny, and dizzyingly panoramic. Like several of his earlier films, Winter Song doesn’t center on a single figure so much as a dense cluster of interrelated characters, all united by objects (an executed aristocrat’s skull), places (the apartment building where most of them live), historical events (from the French Revolution to the Russo-Georgian War), and pure coincidence. An aging upper-crust patriarch burning his letters; a tramp hoping to avoid the advances of a steamroller; an 18th-century nobleman who insists on taking his pipe to the guillotine: Winter Song is a well-stocked encyclopedia of human variety, eccentricity, and folly, elevated by an exquisite cast that include Rufus, Pierre Étaix, and Mathieu Amalric.
U.S. Premiere
Tuesday, March 8, 4:00pm
Friday, March 11, 9:15pm
Tuesday, March 8, 4:00pm
Friday, March 11, 9:15pm
Labels: André Dussollier, Dheepan, Eva Husson, Fatima, FSLC, Gerard Depardieu, Huppert, Isabelle, Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, Rod Paradot, Sara Forestier, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Unifrance
