| 2011  – 97′ –  Comedy / Romance –
Written by Jean-Loup Dabadie and Jean Becker.
Based on Marie-Sabine Roger’s Novel.
Directed by Jean Becker.
Starring Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus, François-Xavier Demaison, Maurane, Patrick Bouchitey, Claire Morier.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

Trailer

In a small French town, Germain (Gérard Depardieu), a nearly illiterate man in his 50’s and considered to be the village idiot by his friends at the local bistro, takes a walk to the park one day and happens to sit beside Margueritte, a little old lady who is reading excerpts from her novel aloud. She’s articulate, highly intelligent and frail. Between Germain and Margueritte, there are 40 years and 200 pounds difference. Germain is lured by Margueritte’s passion for life and the magic of literature from which he has always felt excluded.

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The post MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITE appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2016  – 80′ –  Comedy / Romance  –
Written and Directed by Arnaud Viard.
Starring Irène Jacob, Arnaud Viard, Louise Coldefy, Nadine Alari, Frédérique Bel, Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus, Christophe Rossignon.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films US release.|

Arnaud is a movie director and the typical Parisian guy: charming, distracted, unsettled. As he struggles to convince bankers and producers to invest in his sophomore movie, his fiancée asks him to commit more to their relationship. At the exact same moment he falls in love with Gabrielle, a young and ambitious actress. And at the same time his mother passes away, leading to a turning point in Arnaud’s life. Pitched somewhere between the sardonic humor of Woody Allen and the wry tenderness of Nanni Moretti, Arnaud Viard’s new film uses comedy and romance to depict a man’s crusade to understand his very personal feelings about love and life.

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The post PARIS, LOVE, CUT appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2014 – 77′ –  Romance / Drama –
Co-Written & Directed by Philippe Garrel.
Starring Louis Garrel, Anna Mouglalis, Rebecca Convenant, Olga Milshtein.
Official Competition Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York International Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films US release. |

Trailer

One of the major French filmmakers of the post-New Wave, Philippe Garrel has belatedly been recognized as a master in America, and JEALOUSY may be his most accessible film in nearly 50 years of filmmaking. Shot in lustrous, widescreen black and white by the great Willy Kurant (MASCULIN, FEMININ, UNDER SATAN’S SUN), the film opens with a man leaving his wife and daughter and, in a series of brief conversations, observed gestures, chance encounters and impulsive acts, tells the story of the relationships that flounder and thrive in the wake of this decision. In a autobiographical nod to his actor father Maurice’s abandonment of himself and his mother, the director casts his son and frequent star Louis Garrel as the husband who moves into a garret apartment with his actress girlfriend (Anna Mouglalis) and struggles with fidelity and the temptation to give up their art for an easier life. Shot with Garrel’s celebrated sensitivity and attention to faces, bodies, hands and the intricacies of the human heart, JEALOUSY is an especially intimate, deeply poignant and never less than enthralling tale of love, temptation and betrayal. 

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The post JEALOUSY appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2011 – 106′ –  Comedy / Romance  –
Written by Philippe Le Guay and Jérôme Tonnerre.
Directed by Philippe Le Guay.
Starring Fabrice Luchini, Sandrine Kiberlain, Carmen Maura, Natalia Verbeke, Lola Dueñas, Audrey Fleurot, Berta Orea.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival. Opening Film. Winner COLCOA Best Audience Award.
In French with English subtitles.
A Strand Releasing release. |

Trailer

Paris, 1960. Jean-Louis (Fabrice Luchini, POTICHE) lives a bourgeois existence absorbed in his work, cohabitating peacefully with his neurotic socialite wife Suzanne (Sandrine Kiberlain, NUMBER ONE FAN, IN SAFE HANDS, THE SWEET ESCAPE) while their children are away at boarding school. The couple’s world is turned upside-down when they hire a Spanish maid María (Natalia Verbeke). Through María, Jean-Louis is introduced to an alternative reality just a few floors up on the building’s sixth floor, the servants’ quarters.  He befriends a group of sassy Spanish maids (Pedro Almodóvar regular Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Berta Ojea, Nuria Solé, Concha Galán), refugees of the Franco regime, who teach him there’s more to life than stocks and bonds, and whose influence on the house will ultimately transform everyone’s life.

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The post THE WOMEN ON THE 6TH FLOOR appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2009 – 102′ –  Comedy / Romance –
Written & Directed by Emmanuel Mouret.
Starring Virginie Ledoyen, Emmanuel Mouret, Julie Gayet, Michaël Cohen, Frédérique Bel.
Official selection COLCOA French Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Music Box Films release.|

Trailer

One evening, when Gabriel and Emilie meet by chance  in Nantes, he offers her a ride, and they spend the evening talking, laughing and getting along famously. Although they’re both attracted to each other, they each already have someone in their life. What’s more, they know that they will probably never see each other again. Even so, he’d like to kiss her. She’d also like to kiss him. But something prevents them from doing so: Emilie declines Gabriel’s offer of “a kiss without consequences” and admonishes him that the kiss could have unexpected consequences. She tells him a true story, unfolding in flashbacks, about the impossibility of indulging your desires without affecting someone else’s life.
“Expert, intricate, ineffably droll, ultimately provocative and entirely enchanting.” ~  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
“Irresistible, enchanting…with a surprisingly sober twist.” ~ MARIE CLAIRE
“Mouret marries Rohmer’s visual lucidity and love of smart dialogue to the sort of screwball-comedy antics that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in the films of Lubitsch or Hawks, and he does it all with a beguiling lightness of touch.” – LOS ANGELES WEEKLY

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The post SHALL WE KISS? appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2015 – 99′ –  Comedy / Romance –
Written by Anne Fontaine & Pascal Bonitzer.
Directed by Anne Fontaine.
Starring Gemma Arterton, Fabrice Luchini, Jason Flemyng, Isabelle Candelier, Gilles Schneider, Elsa Zylberstein.
Official selection COLCOA French Film Festival. Special presentation Toronto International Film Festival. In French with English subtitles. A Music Box Films release.|

Trailer

In this vibrant seriocomic re-imagining of Flaubert’s literary classic Madame Bovary, life imitates art in uncanny ways when earthy British beauty Gemma Bovery (Gemma Arterton) and her furniture restorer husband Charles (Jason Flemyng) move to a charming ramshackle old farmhouse in the very same Norman village where the novel was written a century earlier. Their welcoming neighbor, local baker and Flaubert expert Martin Joubert (Fabrice Luchini), becomes entranced with Gemma and sets out to be her guide and mentor to her new surroundings. It doesn’t take long before he is drawing parallels between the literary and real life woman, while he insinuates himself into her life. As reality sets in on the fantasy of rural French domesticity, the Boverys’ marriage begins to fray and Gemma finds herself at loose ends. She soon catches the eye of a handsome young playboy and when her magnetic ex suddenly reappears, she finds herself at a crossroads and seems to be fulfilling Joubert’s worst fears that her destiny is linked to that of Flaubert’s doomed heroine. Director Anne Fontaine’s (COCO BEFORE CHANNEL, NIGHT SHIFT) clever adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel Gemma Bovery is at once a cheeky literary mash-up, a sensuous romance, a witty feminist commentary and a heady celebration of French provincial life.

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The post GEMMA BOVERY appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2015 – 91′ –  Comedy / Romance –
Written and Directed by Anne Le Ny.
Starring Karin Viard, Emmanuelle Devos, Roschdy Zem, Anne Le Ny, Philippe Rebbot.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films U.S. release.|

Trailer

Marithé works in a training center and her task is to assist people who are seeking alternative job options. One day, Carole arrives at the center, looking for new professional opportunities. She can no longer stand the pressure of working with her talented Michelin-starred chef husband, Sam (Roschdy Zem), nor does she want to live in his shadow. She has never completed her studies and thus reaches out to Marithé to turn her life around. The two women hit it off immediately, bonding over their desire for change. Both want more out of life in the workplace and in their personal life but both are not sure on how to obtain it. When Marithé meets Sam, she can’t help being attracted to him. Suddenly she has some very personal motives in helping Carole to start over…

A real crowd pleaser, this fun tragicomedy stars French superstar actresses Cesar Award winner Emmanuelle Devos (PERFUMES, JUST A SIGH, A CHRISTMAS TALE) as Carole, and Cesar Award winner Karine Viard (POLISSE, MY PIECE OF THE PIE, THE PERFECT NANNY) as Marithé. French heartthrob Cesar Award winner Roschdy Zem (OUTSIDE THE LAW, MY WIFE IS AN ACTRESS) completes this all-star cast as Sam, the object of Marithé’s desire.

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The post THE CHEF’S WIFE appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

THE STUDENT AND MR HENRI

Late star Claude Brasseur plays the cantankerous Henri of the title in this riotous comedy of bad manners and good intentions. Bitterly opposed to the relationship between his son Paul (television comic Guillaume de Tonquédec) and the flighty Valérie (Frédérique Bel), Henri strikes upon a devious plan. He offers a free board to attractive student Constance (vivacious newcomer Noémie Schmidt), who, desperate to make her own way, agrees to use her charms to drive the couple apart.
What ensues is classic farce material with a whirlwind of uproarious misunderstandings and awkward situations. Yet despite the wry cynicism at the beginning, there is still a sweet and uplifting message at its core – follow your dreams and don’t waste a minute.
César award-winning director Ivan Calbérac has adapted his own stage hit to the screen with triumphant results, in a top example of the Paris boulevard comedy style. In a uniformly superb cast, honours go to Brasseur, who is a hoot as the old coot. Uproarious fun from start to finish, this is bound to be an audience favourite.

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SOMEONE SOMEWHERE

| 2020 – 110′ – Comedy / Romance – Written and Directed by Cédric Klapisch.
Starring Ana Girardot, François Civil, Camille Cottin, François Berléand, Simon Abkarian.
North American Premiere COLCOA 2019.
A Distrib Films U.S. release. |

In this Parisian bitter sweet romance from Cédric Klapisch, warehouse employee Rémy (François Civil) and research assistant Mélanie (Ana Girardot) have never met, but they live parallel lives: they reside in neighboring apartment buildings, ride the same subway route, and are troubled by bouts of insomnia and depression. Their days punctuated by unfulfilling jobs, they seek meaningful romantic and platonic connection. As they stumble through psychotherapy, dating apps, fainting spells, and family visits, the seemingly star-crossed duo orbit around each other but remain just out of reach. Klapisch spins a delicate “what-if” from their compartmentalization, exploring our increasingly hermetic modern urban life.

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