WINDOWS ON FRENCH CINEMA

Screening List：

BRIGHT SUNSHINE IN

BARBARA

THE GUARDIANS (4K)

RETURN OF THE HERO (4K)

THE WORKSHOP

HAPPY END (4K)

BRIGHT SUNSHINE IN (2017)

Directed by: Claire Denis

Starring: Juliette Binoche / Xavier Beauvois / Gérard Depardieu / Nicolas Duvauchelle / Philippe Katerine

Plot:

Isabelle, Parisian artist, divorced mother, is looking for love. She wants to find someone with whom she could be herself but is not sure that this is ever going to happen. When a man appears, it could be him – but never is. She's going through a period – of uncertainty, in the hopeful pursuit of an ideal – and she discovers once again that a feeling can make you happy, just as much as it can harm and hurt you. Isabelle meets men, loves them, or believes she does. And at times we are given the impression of a love grapple tainted by social bias, in which everything counts: the way a word is pronounced, a simple physical gesture made, and the way one is generally looked upon by others.

BARBARA  (2017)

 

 

Directed by: Matthieu Amalric

Starring: Jeanne Balibar / Mathieu Amalric / Vincent Peirani / Fanny Imber

 

Plot:

The legendary singer known only as Barbara, gifted with a tremulously expressive voice and striking stage presence, is an enduring icon of French culture. An actress, Brigitte, has been cast to play the role of Barbara in an upcoming film based on her life. Brigitte works earnestly on her character, her voice, gestures, manners, and intonations. She learns the songs and scores, mimics her facial expression, even her knitting. As Brigitte does more and more of it, the character grows inside her, invades her. She gradually merges with the character. Yves, the director, is also preparing to shoot the film: he studies her encounters, archival footage and the music. He seems inhabited, inspired and even possessed - but with Barbara or with her new incarnation? 

 

THE GUARDIANS (4K) (2017)

 

 

Directed by: Xavier Beauvois

Starring: Nathalie Baye / Laura Smet / Olivier Rabourdin / Iris Bry

 

Plot:

During the World War I, in 1915, life at the Paridier farm has changed dramatically since the men of the family left home to go and fight on the front line. Hortense Sandrail, Henri and Constant's mother has taken over the family affair courageously. Although she received help from her daughter Solange and they work tirelessly, she finds it hard to get by with all the workload and their men rarely visits on leave. When harvest time comes, she makes up her mind to hire a farmhand but she is too late and finds no man available to hire. She hires an orphan named Francine Riant. The girl proves perfect: well-mannered and respectful, she is also a hard worker who does not balk at any task and she believes that she has finally found a family. Hortense, Solange and her form an effective trio, who make the most of the situation. One day, Georges comes back to the farm on leave and he falls in love with Francine. 

 

 

RETURN OF THE HERO (4K)  (2018)

 

 

Directed by: Laurent Tirard

Starring: Jean Dujardin / Mélanie Laurent / Noémie Merlant / Christophe Montenez

 

Plot:

In 1809, Captain Neuville, suave and charming, shows up at the chateau of Elisabeth. He's there to ask her younger sister, Pauline, to marry him, but just when her parents accept the proposal, he's sent off to fight in one of Napoleon's wars. After not hearing from him for months, Pauline starts to become ill with worry, pushing Elisabeth to write fake letters on behalf of Neuville. Elisabeth forges letters from Neuville that tell his wartime gallantry and later on, his heroic death. Yet three years later, Neuville returns home unexpectedly. He is welcomed in glory but is actually a war deserter and an opportunistic coward turned into a drunken lout. Looking for a way to cash in on his engagement, he shows up at Pauline's as an alleged hero, only to find she's already married. Elisabeth, suspicious of his intention, is determined to expose the real Neuville. The two imposters are about to wage a ruthless war…

 

THE WORKSHOP (2017)

 

 

Directed by: Laurent Cantet

Starring: Marina Foïs / Matthieu Lucci / Warda Rammach / Issam Talbi

 

Plot:

It's summer in La Ciotat, a town near Marseille which used to be prosperous but has been in decline since the closing of its dockyard 25 years before. A writing workshop is set up here to help a group of seven young people integrate into the world of writing. Under the guidance of the well-known novelist Olivia Dejazet, the participants are asked to write a noir fiction connected with the industrial past of their hometown. Session after session, one of them, a boy named Antoine, stands out. Provocative and aggressive, he gets noticed by his systematic opposition to all, including Olivia. Even more alarming, the story he has devised and that he reads aloud is a disturbing account of a mass murder seen through the eyes of its perpetrator. Antoine understands the killer too well. At this point, Olivia starts experiencing a feeling of attraction as well as repulsion towards Antoine...

 

 

HAPPY END (4K)  (2017)

 

 

Directed by: Michael Haneke

Starring: Isabelle Huppert / Jean-Louis Trintignant / Mathieu Kassovitz / Franz Rogowski / Fantine Harduin

 

Plot:

When her mother falls ill under mysterious circumstances, young Eve is sent to live with her estranged father's relatives in Calais. The Laurent family – wealthy, neurotic and self-obsessed – owns a lucrative construction company and lives in a sprawling mansion house against the backdrop of the city's increasingly turbulent refugee crisis, waited on by servants. But under its well-off appearence, the family is wildly dysfunctional with a dementia-afflicted patriarch, a steely daughter and a self-loathing adult grandson. Trouble is brewing, as an accident on one of the family firm's construction sites brings class tensions between them and their workers to a boil and a series of intergenerational backstabbings threaten to tear the family apart. Meanwhile, distracted by infidelities and betrayals, they fail to notice that their young new arrival has a sinister secret of her own...