And we thought we knew everything about Marie Antoinette! Well, whether or not it has any basis in reality, it looks luscious. How can it not be? We’ll be seeing it, that’s for sure.
More about Farewell My Queen on Facebook.
Champs-Élysées Film Festival: first Parisian festival celebrating American film
In a city with a worldwide association to cinema, the Champs-Élysées Film Festival will be an annual celebration of film. Open to every kind of cinematic format, the Champs-Elysées Film Festival will allow French audiences to become acquainted with the best in American cinema from the newest trends to the latest film phenomena while showcasing films by both internationally renowned filmmakers as well as industry newcomers.
Open to the public! Festival Pass only 35€ ! Luscious Lambert Wilson is the Président d’honneur, and there’ll be a Donald Sutherland retrospective, plus he’ll be teaching a master class.
Image from the movie Luv, an official selection.
Nénette, une dame d’un certain âge…
Meet Nénette who, at 40, is the oldest resident of the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris. The Parisians love her. See the trailer of the award-winning documentary about her made by French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert.
Poaching and palm oil plantations are killing off the orangutans. If you care about them, there are several ways you can help through Orangutan Outreach.
Luscious Deneuve cover art for “Belle de Jour” DVD release
The Criterion Collection, a video-distribution company selling “important classic and contemporary films” to film aficionados, just released Belle de Jour on BluRay and enlisted fashion illustrator David Downton to provide art for the cover and interior booklet.
Read the rest and see Downton’s other (sexy!) piece at Criterion Confessions. Buy the Criterion Belle de Jour at the Francophilia Amazon store!
CD compilation of music from Nouvelle Vague films
If your Valentine happens to be both a Francophile and a cineaste, I think s/he might be quite pleased with Universal-France’s three-disc compilation, Nouvelle Vague: Chansons et Musiques de Films. The set includes selections from soundtracks composed by Michel Legrand, Georges Delerue, Miles Davis, Maurice Jarre, Serge Gainsbourg, Bernard Herrmann, and on and on, for films by such directors as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol, Phillippe De Broca, Jacques Demy, and on and on.
Read more at Cinespect and buy Nouvelle Vague: Chansons et Musiques de Films at the Francophilia Amazon Store!
Spectacular “Irma La Douce” storyboards
Irma La Douce was a childhood francophile favorite! Just unearthed, the amazing storyboards for the movie’s animated trailer. See them all on Michael Sporn Animation, and at the bottom a video of the trailer itself.
Via Drawn. Make you nostalgic? You can buy a DVD of Irma La Douce at the Francophilia Amazon store!
Hugh Jackman to be Jean Valjean in Les Mis musical movie
Guess all those Lipton commercials convinced someone he was the right man for the job…
Read the rest at Javert Update.
“Le Chat du Rabbin”
Just out, an animated feature film by Joann Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux, based on Sfar’s graphic novel of the same name. Sfar also directed the fabulous and fantastical Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque).
Buy The Rabbi’s Cat at the Francophilia Amazon store!
Kubrick’s unfinished movie “Napoleon”
Today, publisher Taschen releases Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made — an equally epic tome about the project that never happened, making Kubrick’s ambitious work on Napoleon available to the world for the first time as 10 books that live inside one giant volume.
Read the rest at Brain Pickings. Buy the book at the Francophilia Amazon store.
Tintin is coming…
Les Aventures de Tintin, by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) coming to theaters in December! Here’s the official Tintin site. Get your Tintin books in the Francophilia Amazon store!
Herzog documentary: “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams”
The acclaimed German director, who has produced, written and directed more than 40 films, gained exclusive access to the Chauvet caves. He tells their story and the story of the world’s oldest cave paintings in The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a 3-D documentary film.
More at NPR, image TheMasterpieceCards.com
February giveaway: “Adrift”
Set in the breathtaking Brazilian shores of Búzios in the early 1980s, ADRIFT tells the story of teenager Filipa (Laura Neiva), in a defining summer that sees her transition from child to adult, uncovering the fact that life is far more complex when the surface is severely scratched and uneasy truths are divulged. Her father is played by acclaimed French actor Vincent Cassel.
We have five copies of this DVD to give away this month. It is zoned for Europe only, so this month, the contest is just for European members! Go to the Community home page to see how to win. Offer ends February 28, 2011.
Vincent Cassel fan? Buy an ADRIFT movie poster at the Francophilia Amazon Store.
Michael Caine gets highest French Arts & Letters award
Evidently he thanked France for his Legion of Honor award, which only French citizens can receive!
via National Post