05/10/2007

Christophe Honoré's Love Songs [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] this week opened the 8th French Film Party. The non-competitive event takes place in six Portuguese cities (Lisbon, Évora, Coimbra, Almada and Porto) until October 28.

Organised by the Franco Portuguese Institute, the party describes itself as a festival of avant-premieres, with the screening of 28 recent features. The programme shows the diversity of current French production, intentionally combining commercial films with more typical arthouse titles, commonly distributed by Atalanta in small venues of the two major cities, and therefore reserved almost exclusively for a narrow audience of film elites.

Honoré's romantic musical starring Louis Garrel (see news) will be shown along with other acclaimed Cannes films, notably Persepolis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marc-Antoine Robert
interview: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Pa…
film profile] (Focus), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the documentary Terror’s Advocate [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Water Lilies [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the remarkable teen drama by Céline Sciamma (see interview).

Master filmmaker Alain Resnais (interview) seems to have a special place in the heart of the programmers as he is the only director with more than one film in the line-up. Besides his latest feature, Private Fears in Public Places [+see also:
trailer
film profile], local viewers will be able to rediscover two of his earlier works: Not on the Lips and 1997 musical hit Same Old Song.

The programme also includes the Franco/Belgian co-productions Private Property [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Joachim Lafosse (interview) and Odette toulemonde [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (interview). The well-known writer will present his directorial debut on October 12.