French Cinema Comes to Lincoln Center this March
New York, NY (January 26, 2023) — Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center announce the lineup for the 28th edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, the celebrated annual festival that exemplifies the variety and vitality of contemporary French filmmaking, taking place March 2–12.
The 2023 Opening Night selection is Alice Winocour’s Revoir Paris, featuring Virginie Efira (Benedetta, NYFF59 Main Slate selection) as translator Mia, who survived a mass shooting in a Paris restaurant and is unable to resume life as usual. Determined to reestablish a sense of normalcy, Mia returns repeatedly to the site of the shooting, forming bonds with fellow survivors in the process.
“It is a such a pleasure to open this year’s edition with the French critical and box-office hit Revoir Paris in the presence of director Alice Winocour and actress Virginie Efira, who just received our French Cinema Award in Paris,” said Daniela Elstner, executive director of Unifrance. “Their presence highlights what French cinema represents for American audiences today: an alternative voice and a vision of human relationships, world issues, and collective consciousness that is reflected throughout this year’s selection. Moreover, Rendez-Vous has always been a place for cinematic dialogue between our two countries. This is why we are so pleased to have French-American director Sophie Barthes, whose film The Pod Generation just won an award at Sundance, as our 2023 Special Guest for opening night, and to have actor-director Owen Kline (Funny Pages) leading an in-depth conversation with Louis Garrel.”
“It is an honor and a joy to present this remarkable edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema with Unifrance for our 28th year of collaboration,” said Florence Almozini, senior director of programming for Film at Lincoln Center. “As always, Rendez-Vous is a perfect showcase to display the artistry, the relevance, and the diversity of contemporary French cinema. This includes the rare treat of having both Philippe and Louis Garrel’s films, as well as welcoming many returning directors.”
Highlights of the 21-film lineup include: Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother and Sister, his newest drama starring Melvil Poupaud and Marion Cotillard as siblings Louis and Alice, who are forced to negotiate some kind of coexistence after their parents are involved in a near-deadly car crash; Rachid Hami’s For My Country, which follows the death of Aïssa (Shaïn Boumedine) after a hazing at a military academy, and the efforts of his older brother, Ismaël (Karim Leklou), to bury him and demand answers; Other People’s Children, where director Rebecca Zlotowski draws from her own life to depict the emotional trajectory of Rachel (Virginie Efira), a schoolteacher whose desire for a biological child seems increasingly unlikely to be fulfilled; The Innocent, the latest comedy from actor-writer-director Louis Garrel, which follows Abel (Garrel), a young man who finds himself in over his head while navigating a world of criminal mischief after his mother marries a reformed convict just before the man’s release from prison; Saturn Bowling, Patricia Mazuy’s tense drama, which transforms into a twisty neo-noir as police detective Guillaume ( Arieh Worthalter) finds his relationship with his already estranged family further strained by a series of murders; Mother and Son, Léonor Serraille’s portrait of the complex, sometimes painful relationship between an African immigrant mother and her sons; Léa Mysius’s sophomore directorial effort, The Five Devils, starring Sally Dramé as Vicky, a young girl with a supernatural talent for reproducing the scent of anyone and anything she encounters; and The Night of the 12th, a stark thriller from Dominik Moll that delivers the genre hallmarks of true crime to excavate insidious strains of misogyny in contemporary French society.
This year’s festival highlights two highly anticipated debut features: writer-director Florent Gouëlou’s Three Nights a Week, which takes Baptiste (Pablo Pauly) into the world of drag performance and culture, leading him on a journey of self-discovery; and Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret’s The Worst Ones, which follows Belgian director Gabriel (Johan Heldenbergh) as he arrives in the small town of Boulogne-sur-Mer to cast non-professional teenagers for his debut feature, while some residents, concerned with improving their town’s image in the media, disapprove of his choices.
Confirmed to appear in person at the festival are Lise Akoka, Virginie Efira, Louis Garrel, Florent Gouëlou, Rachid Hami, Christophe Honoré, Cédric Ido, Matthias Jacquin, Sébastien Marnier, Patricia Mazuy, Dominik Moll, Léa Mysius, Nicolas Pariser, Melvil Poupaud, Léonor Serraille, Ramzi Ben Sliman, Alice Winocour, and Rebecca Zlotowski, with more to follow.
Free talks include a sit-down with filmmakers Alice Winocour and Opening Night Special Guest Sophie Barthes talking about Winocour’s vibrant body of work; a wide-ranging conversation with Virginie Efira in which we’ll discuss the evolution of Efira’s craft and her approach to portraying profoundly complicated, endlessly compelling women; a conversation with Louis Garrel, moderated by Owen Kline, discussing Garrel’s distinctive sensibility, his thematic and stylistic interests, and the ways in which his work is shaped by his process behind the camera; and Queer Identities on Screen, made possible in partnership with The Gotham Film & Media Institute and French in Motion, a special panel conversation featuring Christophe Honoré ( Winter Boy), Florent Gouëlou ( Three Nights a Week), and more to be announced.
Moviegoers will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite film in the festival with the fourth annual Rendez-Vous Audience Award. This year’s festival will also again feature the Best Emerging Filmmaker Award, bringing attention to the unique cinematic points of view of emerging filmmakers and their interpretations of France’s new and diverse identities and encouraging young people to attend the festival. A jury of six students pursuing film and French studies degrees from New York City colleges will choose their favorite first or second feature from this year’s Rendez-Vous slate. The jury-awarded film will be announced shortly after the end of the festival alongside the Rendez-Vous Audience Award. To further encourage young people to be part of Rendez-Vous, two free school screenings of Neneh Superstar will be organized on March 6 and 7, with director Ramzi Ben Sliman in attendance for a post-screening discussion with middle-school, high-school, and college students.
For more information visit the Film at Lincoln Center website.
Originally published at https://behindtherabbitproductions.wordpress.com on February 3, 2023.
