Music & Dance – The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org The American French Film Festival in Los Angeles Tue, 03 Feb 2026 22:04:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 TWO PIANOS ../../../two-pianos/ Tue, 03 Feb 2026 22:04:10 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=26106

IN THEATERS IN SPRING 2026, BEFORE A DIGITAL RELEASE.

TWO PIANOS

| 2026 – 115′ – Drama,  Romance, Music & Dance.
Written by: Arnaud Desplechin, Kamen Velkovsky. Anne Berest.
Directed by: Arnaud Desplechin.
Starring: François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Charlotte Rampling, Hippolyte Girardot, Alba Gaia Bellugi, Anne Kessler, Jeremy Lewin, Marianne Pommier, Valentin Picard.
Official Selections: Toronto International Film Festival (2025), San Sebastian International Film Festival (2025), Rendez-vous With French Cinema in New York (2026).
In French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release. |

Returning to France after a long exile, pianist Mathias Vogler reunites with his mentor, Elena, to prepare a concert. In a park, an encounter with a child who looks just like him will lead him to Claude, the woman he once loved.

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LA SCALA: THE FORCE OF DESTINY ../../../la-scala-the-force-of-destiny-2/ Tue, 03 Feb 2026 21:57:57 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=26103

IN THEATERS ON MARCH 27, BEFORE A DIGITAL RELEASE.

LA SCALA: THE FORCE OF DESTINY

| 2026 – 95′ – Documentary, film & Art, Music & Dance, Women Directors
Written by: Anissa Bonnefont, Myriam Weil.
Directed by: Anissa Bonnefont.
Starring: Riccardo Chailly (conductor), Léo Muscato (stage director), Silvia Aymonino (costume designer), Federica Parolini (set designer), Anna Netrebko (soprano), Brian Jadge (tenor), Ludovic Tezier (baryton), Vasilisa Berzhanskaya (soprano), Roberto Bolle (ballet dancer).
Official Competition TAFFF 2025 (North American Premiere).
In English and in Italian with English subtitles.
A Juno Films release. |

A performance of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino marks the opening of the Milan opera season at La Scala. A major cultural event since 1951, “la prima” draws opera lovers from all over the world. La Scala: The Force of Destiny takes us behind the scenes, from the first rehearsals with singers, musicians and dancers, all the way to opening night. Capturing the tension, passion and brilliance that define La Scala, the film plunges us into the day-to-day creative processes that take place behind the closed doors of the world’s most iconic opera house – which opened those doors to cameras for the very first time for this film.

 

 

 

 

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THE MARCHING BAND ../../../the-marching-band-2/ Sat, 23 Aug 2025 16:42:47 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=23619 IN THEATERS IN SPRING 2026, FOLLOWED BY A DIGITAL RELEASE.

THE MARCHING BAND

| 2026 – 103′ – Drama, Comedy, Family 14+, Music & Dance, TAFFF Awards Winner.
Written by: Emmanuel Courcol, Irène Muscari.
Directed by: Emmanuel Courcol.
Starring: Benjamin Lavernhe, Pierre Lottin, Sarah Suco, Jacques Bonnaffé, Anne Loiret, Martine Courcol-Rozès, Yvon Martin, Isabelle Zanotti.
Official Selections Cannes International Film Festival 2024, San Sebastian International Film Festival (Winner Audience Award). 7 César Award Nominations including Best Film.
Official Competition TAFFF 2024 (Winner Audience Award).
In French with English subtitles.
A Greenwich Entertainment release. |

Thibaut, an internationally renowned orchestra conductor, is diagnosed with leukemia and desperately in need of a bone marrow transplant. His search for a donor leads him to discover, at 37, that he was, in fact, adopted… and actually has a biological brother somewhere in France. Their lives may be worlds apart — Thibaut was raised in a posh Parisian suburb and has a seemingly charmed life, while Jimmy lives in a small working-class town, slings hash in a cafeteria and plays trombone in the local marching band. But blood runs thicker than water and it turns out that, each in his own way, they share a profound connection to music. Actors Benjamin Lavernhe and Pierre Lottin bring them to life with all of their longings, resentments and complexes intact, in Emmanuel Courcol‘s heartfelt ode to the power of music and brotherly love.

 

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CODA ../../../coda/ ../../../coda/#respond Tue, 12 Aug 2025 22:58:55 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=23379

CODA

| 2022 – 101′ – A USA/France co-production – Drama, Coming-of Age, Music & Dance, Co-Produced by France.
Written by: Siân Heder.
Directed by: Siân Heder.
Starring: Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, Rebecca Gibel, John Fiore, Lonnie Farmer.
Official Selection Sundance International Film Festival 2021 (winner). Academy Awards Winner 2022 (Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur).
In English.
An Apple Original release. |

Seventeen-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the sole hearing member of a deaf family — a CODA, child of deaf adults. Her life revolves around acting as interpreter for her parents (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur) and working on the family’s struggling fishing boat every day before school with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant). But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and soon finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams. CODA is the American remake of French Film The Belier Family. 

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BARDOT ../../../bardot-2/ Mon, 04 Aug 2025 16:17:02 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=23255

BARDOT

| 2025 – 6 x 52′ – Series (Season 1) – Drama, Biopic, Period & History, Films About Cinema, Music & Dance.
Created by: Danièle and Christopher Thompson.
Written by: Danièle and Christopher Thompson.
Directed by: Danièle and Christopher Thompson.
Starring: Julia de Nunez, Hyppolite Girardot, Géraldine Pailhas, Victor Belmondo, Yvan Attal, Anne Le Ny, Noham Edge, Lou Gable , Laurent Stocker.
Official Competition TAFFF 2023 (North American Premiere).
In French with English subtitles.
A PBS Masterpiece release. |

Fresh-faced newcomer Julia de Nunez brings the iconic Brigitte Bardot to visceral, plaintive life in her very first screen performance, opposite the equally charismatic Victor Belmondo (Jean-Paul’s grandson), who plays writer/director Roger Vadim. Touting an all-star French cast, the six-episode biopic series traces the life of the ’50s “French bombshell,” from her first audition at 15, through her explosive international breakout in Vadim’s risqué 1957 …And God Created Woman, to her powerful performance in Henri-Georges Cluzot’s Truth in 1960. Bardot is more than a myth in her native country — “sex kitten,” Marianne (the national personification of liberty), unrelenting animal rights activist, and what Simone de Beauvoir called “the most liberated woman in post-war France,” all rolled into one. And de Nunez indeed manages to evoke all that with grace, poise and apparent ease in this post-WWII Pygmalion story in which a sheltered bourgeois teen-age girl ignites a veritable sexual revolution in France.

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EDEN ../../../eden/ ../../../eden/#respond Sat, 12 Jul 2025 15:29:30 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=22922

EDEN

| 2015  – 131′ – Drama, Music & Dance, Coming of Age, Women Directors.
Written by: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Directed by: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Starring: Felix De Givry, Pauline Etienne, Vincent Macaigne, Greta Gerwig, Golshifteh Farahani, Laura Smet, Vincent Lacoste, Roman Kolinka, Paul Spera, Zita Hanrot.
Official Selections: Toronto International Film Festival 2014, San Sebastian International FIlm Festival 2014, New York Film Festival 2014, Sundance Film Festival 2015.
In French with English subtitles.
A Gravitas Ventures release. |

Paul, a teenager in the underground scene of early-nineties Paris, forms a DJ collective with his friends and together they plunge into the nightlife of sex, drugs, and endless music. 

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THE MUSICIANS ../../../the-musicians/ Fri, 20 Jun 2025 15:38:01 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=22573

NOW PLAYING IN THEATERS. COMING SOON TO DIGITAL.

THE MUSICIANS


| 2025 – 102′ – Comedy, Drama, Romance, Music & Dance.
Written by: Grégory Magne, Haroun.
Directed by: Grégory Magne.
Starring: Valérie Donzelli, Frédéric Pierrot, Mathieu Spinosi, Emma Ravier, Daniel Garlitsky, Marie Vialle, Valentin Pradier, Nicolas Bridet.
In French with English Subtitles.
An Outsider Pictures release. |


Astrid Thompson finally succeeds in fulfilling her father’s dream of bringing together four Stradivarius instruments for a unique concert eagerly awaited by music lovers the world over. But Lise, George, Peter and Apolline, the four virtuosos recruited for the occasion, are unable to play together. Rehearsal after rehearsal leads to one ego crisis after another. With no solution in sight, Astrid decides to seek out the only person who, in her eyes, can still save the event: Charlie Beaumont, the composer of the score.

 

 

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THE PIANO ../../../the-piano/ ../../../the-piano/#respond Thu, 12 Jun 2025 22:16:50 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=22495

THE PIANO

| 1993 (Re-released in 2017 restored version) – 120′ – Drama, Classic, Period & History, Music & Dance, Women Directors, Co-Produced by France. An Australia/France Co-Production.
Written by: Jane Campion.
Directed by: Jane Campion.
Starring: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Kerry Walker, Genevieve Lemon, Tungia Baker, Ian Mune, Peter Dennett.
Official Selections: Cannes International Film Festival 1993 (winner Palme d’Or & Best Actress Award), Locarno International Film Festival 1993. 7 Academy Awards Nominations 1994, including Best Film and Best Director (winner Best Screenplay, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role). César Award winner for Best Foreign Feature 1994.
In English.
A Miramax Films release. |


After a long voyage from Scotland, pianist Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) and her young daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin), are left with all their belongings, including a piano, on a New Zealand beach. Ada, who has been mute since childhood, has been sold into marriage to a local man named Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill). Making little attempt to warm up to Alisdair, Ada soon becomes intrigued by his Maori-friendly acquaintance, George Baines (Harvey Keitel), leading to tense, life-altering conflicts.

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BLACK ORPHEUS ../../../black-orpheus/ ../../../black-orpheus/#respond Mon, 12 May 2025 16:55:15 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=22006

BLACK ORPHEUS

| 1960 (Re-RELEASED in 2021) – 105′ – DRAMA, MUSIC & DANCE, ROMANCE, CLASSIC.
Written by: Marcel Camus, Jacques Viot.
Based on the Play by: Vinicius de Moraes.
Directed by: Marcel Camus.
Starring: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Ademar Da Silva, Marcel Camus, Fausto. Guerzoni, Lourdes de Oliviera, Lea Garcia, Alexandro Constantino, Waldemar De Souza.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival 1959 (Winner Palme D’Or). Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
A The Criterion Collection release. |

1960 Academy Award Winner and winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice against the madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its magnificent color photography and lively soundtrack, this film brought the infectious bossa nova beat to the United States.

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QUEENS OF DRAMA ../../../queens-of-drama/ Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:02:30 +0000 https://theamericanfrenchfilmfestival.org/?p=21713

QUEENS OF DRAMA

| 2025 – 115′ –  Drama, Music & Dance, LGBTQ+.
Written by: Alexis Langlois, Carlotta Coco, Thomas Colineau.
Directed by: Alexis Langlois.
Starring: Louiza Aura, Gio Ventura, Bilal Hassani, Nana Benaner, Alma Jodorowsky, Asia Argento, Thomas Poitevin, Dustin Muchuvitz.
Official Selection Critics Week Cannes 2024.
In French with English subtitles.
An Altered Innocence release. |

 

An outrageous lesbian pop musical satire inspired by the pop frenzy of the early 2000s, Queens of Drama charts the rise and fall of new star Mimi Madamour and her passionate, rage-fueled love affair with punk icon Billie Kohler. Over the course of half a century we follow these drama queens as they top the charts and set sail on the course of mad queer love. Featuring an iconic cast, including Asia Argento and Alma Jodorowsky, and containing hit songs like ‘Don’t Touch’ by Yelle and ‘Fisted to the Heart’, this film vividly dissects the turbulence of toxic relationships—whether between fans and their idols or within passionate queer love affairs. Director Alexis Langlois brings his trademark glittercore pop-punk aesthetic to create a vibrant, unforgettable spectacle of music and passion.

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