“We’re honored to have been selected from applicants from all over the U.S. to receive a Tournées grant for culture,” said Margaret Flinn, assistant professor of French and cinema studies at U of I. “We’re also excited to be hosting a French film festival here in Champaign-Urbana, with the fantastic collaboration of Parkland College and Boardman’s Art Theatre,” she added.

The festival is being made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC). The Tournées Festival is an annual grant program designed to support the screening of contemporary French cinema on American university and college campuses. Tournées is a program made available by the French American Cultural Exchange (FACE).

COMPLETE FILM SCHEDULE
Brodeuses/Sequins (Eléonore Faucher, France 2004), 88min.
Starring: Lola Neymark, Ariane Ascaride

Synopsis: Claire is an unmarried, pregnant teenager. Madame Melikian is an embroiderer for high class fashion designers. Claire finds a job, refuge, and solace with Madame Melikian; as Claire's belly grows, so do the threads of Madame Melikian's embroidereries and, subsequently, the threads of the bond between the two. The film is an exercise in beautifully understated simplicity: a story of love, friendship, kindness, and healing, each emotion built stitch by delicate stitch.

“‘Sequins’ is one of those films that deals with the relationship between two people with utmost delicacy, like a precious material to be handled carefully.” -Florence Columbani, Le Monde

Plays: Saturday 10/8, 5pm; Monday 10/10, 7pm; Tuesday 10/11, 4:30pm; Wednesday 10/12, 7pm

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L'Esquive/Games of Love and Chance (Abdellatif Kechiche, France, 2003), 117min. With: Osman Elkharraz, Sara Forestier, Sabrina Ouazani, Nanou Benhamou, Hafet Ben-Ahmed & Aurélie Ganito

Synopsis: Set in the projects of Paris, "Games of Love and Chance" is a study of a group of teenagers in social housing, a world of broken homes and poverty. Without a means to truly express themselves, the teenagers begin to adopt the posturing of the damaged, jaded, and virtually non-existent adults raising them, and attack each in constant outbursts of verbal aggression. In spite of this, however, Kechiche's film has a kind heart, and is played with a tremendous sense of humor, honesty, and frankness.

“Using non-professional actors who are astonishingly fresh and vigorous, [Abdellatif Kechiche] manages to mesh reality and hope together. “Games of Love and Chance” describes the world as it is and dreams as they should be.”--Pierre Murat, Télérama

Plays: Friday 10/7, 9:45pm; Saturday 10/8, 7pm; Sunday 10/9, 4:15pm, 9:30pm;
Monday 10/10, 4:30pm

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Moolaadé/Mooladé, (Ousmane Sembene, Senegal 2004), 134min.
With: Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maïmouna Diarra, Salimata Traoré, Dominique Zeïda, Mah Compaoré, Aminata Dao

Synopsis: In Mooladé, Ousmane Sembene continues to provoke his audience and reiterates the strong feminist consciousness that marked his previous film, Faat Kiné. This time, he takes on the explosive issue of female circumcision, a practice still common in Africa. Mooladé is a film about heroism in daily life and, to use Sembene’s own words, about the ‘underground struggle’ of people which is often overlooked by their governments and the rest of world.

"To skip Moolaade would be to miss an opportunity to experience the embracing, affirming, world-changing potential of humanist cinema at its finest." -A.O. Scott, New York Times

Plays: Friday 10/7, 7pm; Sunday 10/9, 1:30pm; Monday 10/10, 9pm; Thursday 10/13, 4:15pm

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Notre Musique, (Jean-Luc Godard, France-Switzerland, 2004), 80min.
With: Sarah Adler, Nade Dieu, Rony Kramer, Ferlyn Brass, Simon Eine, Jean-Christophe Bouvet

Synopsis: Part poetry, part journalism, part philosophy, Jean-Luc Godard’s “Notre Musique” is a timeless meditation on war as seen through the prisms of cinema, text and image. In the film, real-life literary figures (including Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish and Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo) intermingle with actors; and documentary meshes with fiction. Death/life; dark/light; good/bad; negative, positive; real/imaginary; activists/storytellers; vanquished/victor; criminals/victims; suicidal/hopeful; shot/reverse shot: these opposing movements are eternal, they are the two faces of truth. Such is Godard. Such is "Notre Musique."

“… Jean-Luc Godard once again poses a number of provocative questions about art, politics, and the nexus point between them in this drama in three acts.” --Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Plays: Saturday 10/8, 3pm; Tuesday 10/11, 7pm; Wednesday 10/12, 9pm; Thursday 10/13, 7pm

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Qui a tué Bambi/Who Killed Bambi? (Gilles Marchand, France 2003), 128min. Starring: Sophie Quinton

Synopsis: Young Isabelle is an intern at a prestigious hospital where she meets and is instantly attracted to the seductively alluring (albeit seductively strange) Doctor Philipp. Without provocation, she begins to suffer from strange fainting episodes. When patients start mysteriously disappearing from their rooms, paranoia ensues as she becomes increasingly distressed by the shifty Dr. Philipp and his machinations. Stylish and visually arresting, "Who Killed Bambi?" is not to be missed.

“The place is so vacuum-sealed and desolate that it feels as surreal as a maximum-security prison; its silence alone could kill you.” --Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Plays: Saturday 10/8, 9:30pm; Sunday 10/9, 7pm; Tuesday 10/11, 9pm;
Wednesday 10/12, 4:30pm; Thursday 10/13, 9pm.