(See trailer for Scotland set Imogene McCarthery, despite lack of subtitles, you get the idea…)
Check out the Edinburgh programme from 11- 28 Nov
Say what you like about the French, and the tabloid press usually do, but what’s true about them is that unlike ourselves they actually have a film industry. This November at the Filmhouse there’s a chance to see a selection of their output in the annual French Film Festival.
It’s not just the quantity of films coming out of France which is impressive but the quality and variety and this years festival gives a real indication of the width of creative talent and ideas coming from across the channel.
There are unflinching portraits of the immigrant experience such as Khamsa, Costa-Gavras’ Eden is West alongside thrillers like Skirt Day and White as Snow. Comedies like the mischievous Little Nicholas and Safy Nebbou’s Dumas, a witty identity swap tale featuring Gérard Depardieu as the musketeer author sit alongside more harrowing fare such as the holocaust drama The Round Up and An Ordinary Execution, a fictionalised account of Stalin’s death. One film of particular interest to local viewers will be Imogène McCarthery a 50s set spy comedy filmed in Fife and Edinburgh.
A highlight of the fest will be a restored print of Pierre Étaix’s 1969 comedy The Great Love. Étaix who worked as gag writer and assistant director for Jacques Tati as well as for the less than famously funny Robert Bresson will also attend the showing and give a Q & A following it.
This amuse bouche for the banquet of French film out there is a well balanced and intriguing compilation. There’s is no underlying theme to the festival just an opportunity to see diversity and imagination on display. Given the limited horizons of many of our own film-makers as well as those who commission films in the UK its fascinating to look at this collection and imagine what might be if we were a shade braver and less narrow in our definitions and creative choices on screen.