Monday, June 01, 2015

French Film Festival celebrates 20 years


June 3-9, 2015
Greenbelt 3
Ayala CenterMakati
Bonifacio High Street Cinemas
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City

The French Film Festival running this June 3-9, 2015 celebrates 20 years of bringing quality French films to local audiences by expanding further as the festival adds the Bonifacio High Street Cinemas at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig as another screening venue alongside the Greenbelt 3 Cinemas.

The films to be screened for this year include Diplomatie (Diplomacy), 3 Cœurs (3 Hearts), Chante ton bac d’abord (We Did it on a Song), Dans la cour (In the Courtyard), Eden, Hippocrate, La Belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast), La Famille Bélier (The Bélier Family), La French (The Connection), La Jalousie (Jealousy), La Prochaine fois je viserai le cœur (Next Time I’ll Aim for the Heart), L’Amour est un crime parfait (Love is the Perfect Crime), Le Havre, Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table ! (Me, Myself and Mum), L’Homme qu’on aimait trop (In the Name of My Daughter), Lulu femme nue (Lulu in the Nude), Saint Laurent, Timbuktu, 108 Rois-Démons (108 Demon-Kings). Tickets for the film screenings cost P100 each. As always, films will be screened with English subtitles.

French Ambassador Gilles Garachon

On the festival’s red carpet opening night, Taklub by director Brillante Mendoza, the only Philippine entry to the Un Certain Regard section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, will have its Philippine premiere. Taklub, starring Nora Aunor, is produced by Sen. Loren Legarda with the support of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Philippine Information Agency. The film follows the lives of the survivors of the super typhoon Yolanda. The screening of Taklub follows that of La Famille Bélier (The Bélier Family) which will be held earlier in the afternoon of the festival’s opening. These screenings of La Famille Bélier (The Bélier Family) and Taklub will be by invitation only.

Hippocrate


At the press conference for the festival held at the Bonifacio High Street Cinemas, the film Hippocrate from 2014 was shown. Directed by Thomas Lilti, Hippocrate is a medical drama-comedy starring Vincent Lacoste as Benjamin Barois, a young doctor taking his internship at the hospital where his father serves as the director. Vincent starts his internship full of optimism but problems, in the form of stained, ill-fitting coats, broken ECG machines, office politics, party minded fellow interns, a stubborn foreign doctor and accusations of being a papa’s boy start to arise. And these prove to be a lot harder to cure than the patients admitted to the doctors’ care.

This poignant film focuses more on relationships rather than medical jargon although I think I got a good grasp on what an ECG and a morphine drip is despite not having any background in medicine. Reda Kadeb, playing the Algerian doctor Abdel Rezzak whose convictions almost cost him his career, turned in one of the most memorable and nuanced performances in the film. I couldn’t help to notice the irony of doctors lighting up a cigarette right after they've gone through tense and stressful situations.

Avoiding major spoilers, I had to say that the incident involving Vincent towards the end of the film felt too forced and I knew what was about to happen moments leading up to this pivotal part of the film. And the outcome, felt too convenient as if everything wrapped up nicely, with the main villain getting his due and everyone coming out of it satisfied and almost unscathed.


The 20th French Film Festival is organized by the Embassy of France to the Philippines, Institut Français, the Alliance française de Manille and Cebu, in cooperation with the Ayala Malls Cinemas, Bonifacio High Street and Greenbelt. This event would have not been possible without the support of the platinum sponsors: SSI Group, Inc., Beauty Bar, Eden Park, Lacoste, L’Occitane, Oliviers & Co., and Vilebrequin; gold sponsors ThinkBIT and Chateau; bronze sponsors Delsey, Kickers, Sledgers, Peugeot, Bizu, Le Cellier, Don Papa, Monin and TWG; and media partners ANC, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, BusinessWorld, High Life, HerWord.com, L’Officiel Manila and Rogue Media, Art Plus Magazine, Expat News, Mellow 94.7 Sounds Good, and Spot.ph.



Ticket price:
P100

For inquiries:
(0936) 919-6097, frenchfilmfest@gmail.com

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