29/03/2005

Tonight, the 20th Festival du Film de Paris will open on Carlos Saura’s latest film, The Seventh Day (Spain) at the Gaumont Marignan on the Champs-Elysées. The event, hosted by Isabelle Adjani, consists in the screening of over 80 productionss of all types (short films, fiction features, documentaries...) until the 5th of April. Besides the official competition, other sections will present movies sorted out by theme ; thus, for instance, 30 films around ‘water’ will be shown, as well as a selection of films funded by the Fasild (support and action fund for works promoting social integration and fighting disciminations). This year for the first time, the Parisian festival, famous for revealing such directors as Mathieu Kassovitz and Cédric Klapisch, will travel outside the capital to fifteen cities in the periphery, each of which will be represented by an artist, such as Elsa Zylberstein, Yamina Benguigui, Philippe Torreton, François Cluzet, and Charles Berling. This might help, if not save, a festival which is currently the object of two judicial prosecutions, for fictitious employment and fraudulous use of public subsidies.

The official competition —with Pierre Schoendoerffer as president of the jury— includes seven first or second features, three of which are European : In Your Hands [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Annette K. Olesen (Denmark), Quand les anges s’en mêlent by Christel Amsalem (France), and Souli by Alexandre Abela (UK). The French movie Doo Wop by David Lanzmann will be the only production to represent Europe in the Press Prize section. For that matter, French cinema is fairly predominant, especially in the Choice of the Public section with Trois couples en quête d’orages by Jacques Otmezguine and Oublier Cheyenne by Valérie Minetto. The festival will end on the screening of Laurent Dussaux’s Avant qu'il ne soit trop tard (France).

(Translated from French)