| 2020 – 72′ – Animation, Historical  –
Written and directed by Aurel.
In French and Spanish with English subtitles.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival
Cesar Awards 2021: Winner Best Animated Film
A Distrib Films US release|

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February 1939. Spanish republicans are fleeing Franco’s dictatorship to France. The French government built concentration camps, confining the refugees, where they barely have access to hygiene, water and food. In one of these camps, separated by barbed wire, two men will become friends. One is a guard, the other is Josep Bartoli (Barcelona 1910 – NYC 1995), an illustrator who fights against Franco’s regime.

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

| 2016 – 114′ – Drama / History –
Written by Christian Carion, Laure Irmann.
Directed by Christian Carion.
Starring August Diehl, Matthew Rhys, Alice Isaaz, Mathilde Seigner, Olivier Gourmet.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival (Winner of the Critics Award).
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

War films tend to tell stories about political leaders, or the soldiers who carry out their orders. COME WHAT MAY examines the effects of war on more ordinary citizens, a timely subject in the midst of the refugee crisis. It’s 1940; German Panzers are smashing through the Ardennes forest on their way to France. Eight million people flee – the largest exodus in modern history. Among them are Paul, the mayor of a small village, and Suzanne, a young schoolteacher and surrogate mother to Max, a displaced German boy. They organize the charge to abandon the town and head for the safety of the coast. It’s a heavy decision, because taking their caravan on the open roads leaves them defenseless against German attack. At the same time, Max’s father Hans, who fled the Nazi regime and was subsequently imprisoned in France, sets out to look for his son, accompanied by Scottish soldier Percy (The Americans star Matthew Rhys), who hopes to repatriate a set of bagpipes with the retreating British army. An intimate story, told on an epic scale, and with an expansive score by the maestro of film music, Academy Award winner Ennio Morricone.

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The post COME WHAT MAY appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2018 – 105′ – Musical, History –
Written and Directed by Bruno Dumont.
Starring Lise Leplat Prudhomme, Jeanne Voisin, Lucile Gauthier, Nicolas Leclaire, Victoria Lefebvre.
Official Selection Director’s Fortnight Cannes Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Rendezvous With French Cinema in New York.
In French with English subtitles.
A KimStim release.|

Trailer

France, 1425. In the midst of the Hundred Years’ War, the young Jeannette, at the still tender age of 8, looks after her sheep in the small village of Domremy. One day, she tells her friend Hauviette how she cannot bear to see the suffering caused by the English. Madame Gervaise, a nun, tries to reason with the young girl, but Jeannette is ready to take up arms for the salvation of souls and the liberation of the Kingdom of France. Carried by her faith, she will become Joan of Arc.

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The post JEANNETTE, THE CHILDHOOD OF JOAN OF ARC appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2019 – 102′ – Drama / Historical –
Written and Directed by Pierre Schoeller.
Starring Gaspard Ulliel, Adèle Haenel, Louis Garrel, Olivier Gourmet, Laurent Lafitte, Céline Sallette, Denis Lavant, Noémie Lvovsky, Izïa Higelin, Niels Schneider.
Official Selection Venice International Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films US release.|

Paris, 1789. The Bastille has been stormed and a breath of liberty blows through the streets of Paris. Françoise, a young washerwoman, and Basile, a drifter without a family or name, discover the unique exhilaration of love and revolution. Together with their friends and the people of the working-class districts of Paris, they begin to realize dreams of emancipation in a newly formed assembly where they witness, with both hopes and doubts, the creation of a new political system. Within their debates and the fury on the streets, lies the fate of their once sacred king and the birth of a republic. Freedom has a story.

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The post ONE NATION ONE KING appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2018 – 135′ –  Drama / History-,
Co-Written & Directed by Xavier Beauvois.
Starring Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Iris Bry, Olivier Rabourdin, Cyril Descours.
Official Selection COLCOA French Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Music Box Films release.|

Trailer

An affecting human drama of love, loss, and resilience unfolds against the backdrop of World War I. The women of the Paridier farm, under the deft hand of Hortense, the family’s matriarch (Nathalie Baye,) must grapple with the workload while the men, including two sons, are off at the front. Hortense reluctantly brings on an outsider, the hard-scrabble teenage orphan, Francine (played by radiant newcomer and Cesar nominated Iris Bry), to help her daughter Solange (Laura Smet). New tools allow the women to triumph over the land, newfound independence is acquired, yet emotions are stirred especially when the men return from the front on short leaves. Acclaimed filmmaker Xavier Beauvois (OF GODS AND MEN) revels in the mysteries and beauties of the French countryside, here unravaged by war, with painterly images bathed in natural light, yet keeps his focus on the intricate drama that plays out against the upheaval of the Great War.

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

| 2012 – 100′ – Romance / History / Drama –
Co-Written and Directed by Benoît Jacquot
Based on Chantal Thomas’ novel.
Starring Léa Seydoux, Diane Kruger, Virginie Ledoyen, Xavier Beauvois, Noémie Lvovsky, Michel Robin.
Official selection COLCOA French Film Festival. Opening Film Berlin International Film Festival. Winner 3 César Awards.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

Trailer

FAREWELL MY QUEEN marks the return of acclaimed director Benoît Jacquot (A SINGLE GIRL, SEVENTH HEAVEN , IN THE WOODS) and brilliantly captures the passions, debauchery, occasional glimpses of nobility and ultimately the chaos that engulfed the court of Marie Antoinette in the final days before the full-scale outbreak of the Revolution. Based on the best-selling novel by Chantal Thomas, the film stars Léa Seydoux as one of Marie’s ladies-in-waiting, seemingly innocent but quietly working her way into her mistress’s special favors, until history tosses her fate onto a decidedly different path. With the action moving effortlessly from the gilded drawing rooms of the nobles to the back quarters of those who serve them, this is a period film at once accurate and sumptuous in its visual details and modern in its emotions. Diane Kruger gives her best performance to date as the ill-fated Queen and Virginie Ledoyen is the Queen’s special friend Gabrielle de Polignac.

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The post FAREWELL MY QUEEN  appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.

| 2014 – 85′ –  History / Drama  – A French German co production –
Written by Volker Schlöndorff, Cyril Gely.
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff.
Starring André Dussollier, Niels Arestrup, Burghart Klaußner, Robert Stadlober.
Official Selections Berlin International Film Festival, Telluride International Film Festival.
In French and German with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release.|

Trailer

As the Allies march toward Paris in the summer of 1944, Hitler gives orders that the French capital should not fall into enemy hands, or if it does, then ‘only as a field of rubble’. The person assigned to carry out this barbaric act is Wehrmacht commander of Greater Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz (Niels Arestrup), who already has mines planted on the Eiffel Tower, in the Louvre and Notre Dame and on the bridges over the Seine. Nothing should be left as a reminder of the city’s former glory. However, at dawn on 25 August, Swedish Consul General Raoul Nordling (André Dussollier) steals into German headquarters through a secret underground tunnel and there starts a tension-filled game of cat and mouse as Nordling tries to persuade Choltitz to abandon his plan.
In this riveting adaptation of the stage success by Cyril Gély, the great Volker Schlöndorff (Academy Award winner THE TIN DRUM) has created a psychologically elaborate game of political manners between two highly contrasting characters. While Choltitz entrenches himself behind his duty to obey unquestioningly all military orders, Nordling tries everything he can to appeal to reason and humanity and prevent the senseless destruction of the beloved ‘City of Light’. | “PASSIONATE, ENGAGING AND EMOTIONAL… A fine return to form for the veteran German helmer… An elegant orchestrated pas de deux between formidable opponents.” —Scott Foundas, VARIETY  |

THE BEST FOREIGN FILM OF 2014—AARP MAGAZINE MOVIES FOR GROWNUPS AWARDS

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

| 2020 – 103′ –  Drama / History / Romance  –
Written and Directed by Valeria Sarmiento.
Starring Lou de Laâge, Stanislas Merhar, Niels Schneider.
In French with English subtitles.
Official selections Toronto International Film Festival, San Sebastian International Film Festival
A Music Box Films release.|

Trailer

THE BLACK BOOK OF FATHER DINIS explores the tumultuous lives of Laura (Lou de Laâge), a peasant maid, and Sebastian (Vasco Varela da Silva), the young orphan in her charge, against a backdrop of overflowing passion and revolutionary intrigue in Europe at the twilight of the 18th century. An unlikely adventure yarn that strides the continent, from Rome and Venice to London and Paris, with whispers of conspiracies from the clergy, the military, and the gentry, this sumptuous period piece ponders the intertwined nature of fate, desire, and duty. Conceived by director Valeria Sarmiento as an appendix to the expansive literary maze of her late partner Raul Ruiz’s landmark MYSTERIES OF LISBON, this picaresque chronicle both enriches the earlier work and stands on its own as a grand meditation of the stories we construct about ourselves.

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The post THE BLACK BOOK OF FATHER DINIS appeared first on The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles.