The 24th Annual New Orleans
French Film Festival will take place from March 23 to the 31. To comply
with health and safety guidelines, the French Film Fest will take place
outdoors at The Broadside Theater on 600 N.
Broad St.—and most of the films will also be available
to stream from home on the festival's virtual platform. Festival Passes are available for purchase now. Tickets for
members and festival passholders are currently on sale and will be made available
to the general public on March 12th.
Here is a sample of this
year's lineup:
14 Days, 12 Nights
(Canada/2019) - A woman embarks on a journey to Vietnam, her adopted daughter's
birthplace, and learns of the existence and whereabouts of her daughter's
biological mother.
Antigone
(Canada/2019) - Canada's official selection for the 2020 Academy Awards and
winner of the Best Canadian Feature Award at the Toronto International Film
Festival, this modern take on the ancient Greek play by Sophocles centers
around a high school student in Montréal who plots to take her brother's place
in prison.
Mandabi
(Senegal/1968) - This second feature by Ousmane Sembène was the first movie
ever made in the Wolof language—a major step toward the realization of the
Senegalese filmmaker's dream of creating a cinema by, about, and for Africans.
After jobless Ibrahima Dieng receives a money order for 25,000 francs from a
nephew who works in Paris, news of his newfound wealth quickly spreads among
his neighbors, who flock to him for loans, even as he finds his attempts to cash
the order hampered by bureaucratic red tape.
Summer of 85
(France/2020) - Filmmaker François Ozon's (Swimming Pool, 8 Women) nostalgic
look at first love and reckless adolescence in this gay coming-of-age story.
The 24th French Film
Festival will be dedicated to the memory of Artistic Director Emeritus John Desplas, who passed away last year. Desplas
was instrumental in bringing about the first French Film Festival 24 years ago
and remained involved with the festival until his death. He once said in an
interview, "The first French film I saw was Les Quatre Cent Coups by
François Truffaut. It was then that I fell in love with French movies." In
1995, he was honored with the title of "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des
Lettres" by the Ministry of Culture of the French Government in recognition of
his efforts to widen the domestic audience and appeal for French-language films
from around the world.
For ticket information
and a complete schedule, please visit neworleansfilmsociety.org/french-film-festival.
