The French Film Festival brings that je ne sais quois to the IFI this November

The Irish Film Institute’s flagship festival of French cinema returns this November, with an extended tribute to Jean-Luc Godard a big part of the programming.

The IFI French Film Festival 2022 will be taking place from November 16 – 27. Highlights in the programme for this year include Brother and Sister by modern favourite Arnaud Desplechin; Winter Boy by Christopher Honoré, and The Super 8 Years by Annie Ernaux, a recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. This year’s festival will pay particular tribute to Jean-Luc Godard after the legendary director passed away in September this year, with four of the director’s celebrated films from the 60s included in the line-up. Another famous masterpiece set to screen is Krzysztof Kieślowski’s masterpiece, Three Colours: Red, showing in 4K on November 21st, in honour of actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, who died aged 91 this summer.

27 films in all will be shown at this year’s festival, supported as ever by Ambassade de France en Irlande. It all begins on Wednesday 16th November with Opening Gala Rise. Writer-director Cédric Klapisch follows 26-year-old Elise (Marion Barbeau), a ballet dancer who suffers career-threatening injuries on-stage. During recovery, she gets a job at an artists’ residency in Brittany where she finds herself, by chance, catering for a contemporary dance company. Klapisch is familiar with the world of dance, having previously made documentaries, and during lockdown editing a collective film, Dire Merci, shorts shot on smartphones by dancers from the Opéra de Paris. Rise is another heart-warming and generous comedy drama by Klapisch – a tender portrayal of mid-twenties youth with mutual journeys of support and recovery. A wine reception follows the film.

Marion Cotillard features in emotional drama Brother and Sister, screening on the 22nd and 26th. Louis (Melvil Poupaud), a poet/teacher, lives an isolated life in the Pyrenees with wife Faunia (Golshifteh Farahani) following the tragic death of his son Jacob. Louis’s estranged sister Alice (Marion Cotillard) is a famous actress currently on stage in an adaptation of Joyce’s The Dead. As children, Alice and Louis loved one another – but now they are enemies. When their parents have a car accident and are hospitalised, the siblings are forced to meet after more than twenty years.

This year, French writer Annie Ernaux received the Nobel Prize for Literature “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”. In The Super 8 Years, her son helps Annie assembls Super 8 footage shot by late ex-husband Philippe Ernaux from 1972 to 1981. In these years, her first books were published, her sons became teenagers and the family travels to Egypt, the USSR and more. Ernaux and son voiceover the footage to provide an extension of her written work, guiding the viewer through fragments of a decade. The film closes the festival on the 27th.

Following six decades in cinema, New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard’s life came to an end this September. Four of his hits – Vivre Sa Vie, Contempt, Weekend and Two or Three Things I Know About Her, will be shown. In addition, Cyril Leuthy’s examination of the director’s career Godard Cinema will be shown also on November 19th.

You can bring les enfants to see Family programming in King, a family film about a trafficked lion cub’s journey home. With the support of MK2 Films and Curzon, a new 4K restoration of the conclusion of Kieślowski’s Three Colours trilogy will be shown on the 21st. The director’s final film explores fraternity as characters’ lives interlap in unexpected fashion – Jean-Louis Trintignant plays one of his finest roles as retired judge Josephe Kern. With a good mix of well-known classics and buzzy recent hits, its set to be a strong line-up at this year’s festival.

You can see the full French Festival lineup at the IFI HERE. Ticket bundles are available from IFI Box Office on (01) 679 3477 or in-person. 5 films for €50 or 10 for €90.*

Free list suspended for IFI French Film Festival.  *Excludes opening night gala screening of Rise.

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