Oui oui! French film fest comes to NAU


Inside NAU Home \| NAU in the News \| Search Archives \| Submit a News Tip	Vol. 4 No. 5 \| Jan. 31, 2007

If you enjoy great movies but hate buying expensive tickets, or if you'd love to learn about a foreign culture but can't afford the airfare, you're in luck.

On Feb. 10 and 11, the Tournees Festival and the NAU School of Communication will bring five contemporary French films to Cline Library Assembly Hall. Admission will be free.

"French films focus on character and dialogue," said Janna Jones, festival organizer and associate professor at the School of Communication. "You might say that much of the best French cinema provides the spectator a bird's-eye view of the ways of the heart, the spirit and the mind."

The Tournees Festival is a program overseen by the French American Cultural Exchange. The festival gives about $140,000 in grants to universities each year. Its goal is to encourage universities to create and sustain their own French film festivals.

"French cinema and culture are not so radically different from American film and culture, but there are differences," Jones said. "And with those differences, we are offered a slightly new way to see the world. This change in perspective brings us pleasure and new insights into our own lives."

The festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the French Ministry of Culture, the NAU School of Communication, Cline Library and the NAU College of Arts and Letters.

Festival showings

Saturday, Feb. 10

Look at Me (2004), PG-13 1 p.m. Lolita, a plus-size brunette with dreams of becoming a singer, must deal with her famous father, his conniving "friends," and a world dominated by thin, beautiful blondes. Yet hope is not lost, and Lolita's music transcends society in the end.

The Triplets of Belleville (2003), PG-13 3:30 p.m. This lively, award-winning animated film is about Champion, a little boy raised in '50s Paris by his grandmother, Madame Souza. Madame Souza trains Champion to be a great cyclist, and when he is kidnapped at the Tour de France, she must go to New York and rescue him. The film makes affectionate jabs at France.

A Very Long Engagement (2004), R 6 p.m. This film presents a story of ultimate romantic devotion: Mathilde's fiancé serves in the trenches during WWI and never returns home. It seems clear that he is dead, but Mathilde (played by Amelie's Audrey Tautou) believes otherwise and begins trying to find him. There's more than just romance. Engagement also paints a vivid picture of WWI—its battlefields, its trenches, its soldiers and its life-altering effect on millions of people.

Sunday, Feb. 11

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), NR 1 p.m. The classic theme of a decent guy trying to escape his indecent life is illustrated in Beat, a rare species of thriller with heart. Tom is a real estate manager/heavy who works for his slumlord father. His now-dead mother was a classical musician, and after a chance meeting with her former agent, Tom revives his dormant desire to be a concert pianist.

The Far Side of the Moon (2003), NR 3:30 p.m. This metaphorical film depicts sibling rivalry at the time of the U.S./Soviet space race. Two brothers, both played by director Robert Lepage, remember their childhood while going through the belongings of their recently deceased mother.

Information on the festival and the films is available online, or call (928) 523-3596.

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