An all-online offering of French cinema arrives on the IFI’s online platform this Friday. It’s an early festival for film fans that you can experience all from the comfort of your home. Organised by Unifrance, the organisation responsible for promoting French cinema and television content worldwide, MyFrenchFilmFestival 2024 will offer 11 French films to rent online from January 19th – February 19th.
The 14th edition of this festival will be available across the island with films up to view from Friday. Promising an eclectic selection inviting emotion, laughter, and reflection, MyFrenchFilmFestival offers a diverse range of current French cinema. Alongside the 11 new offerings, IFI@Home will also be presenting Jane B. for Agnès V, directed by the late, great Agnès Varda.
Commenting last week on presenting this festival online on IFI@Home, IFI Acting Head of Marketing Frances Wilde said,
‘We’re so excited to present these new, fresh and original French films, alongside Agnès Varda’s beloved Jane B. for Agnès V., on IFI@Home. IFI audiences engage in French language film throughout the year, and throughout their film journey, from our Schools Programme all the way through to the IFI French Film Festival, so we hope that these colourful films bring some light and cheer during a dark part of the year.’
The selection of films reflects the plurality and creativity of French and Francophone cinema. The 2024 festival teaser takes a look back at previous editions of the festival, ahead of this year’s programme.
The 2024 festival, available to pre-order now on IFI@Home, presents comedies including Super Drunk (Super-bourrés), in which a high school student living in the countryside discovers an artisanal distillery hidden in his family cellar, and comedy-mystery thriller The Green Perfume (La parfum vert), which follows a member of an acting troupe who becomes a primary suspect when his friend and fellow actor is poisoned and dies on stage mid-performance.
French language dramas in the line-up include Junkyard Dog (Chien de la Casse), set in a village in the south of France, and winner of Best Feature Film at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma; Spare Keys (Fifi), about a teenage girl who begins a romantic relationship with her friend’s brother; and Stampede (Rodéo), a father-daughter road movie which screened at the IFI French Film Festival 2022.
My Sole Desire (À mon seul désir) turns the female gaze upon a story of sex workers, with cameos from Melvil Poupaud (Time to Leave), Félix Maritaud (Knife+Heart), director Frederick Wiseman, and Ariane Labed (The Lobster). From director Patric Chiha, whose work has screened at the IFI as part of GAZE International LBGTQIA Film Festival, Beasts in the Jungle (La bete dans la jungle), spans 25 years, 1979 to 2004, where a man and woman watch and wait for an unknown event in a nightclub. The debut feature from Zeno Graton, The Lost Boys (Le Paradis), is a stunning portrait of burgeoning masculinity and queer sexuality.
In documentaries, new French-Danish-Greenlandic production Polaris, about an expert sailor in the arctic and the long-distance connection with her sister,is presented alongside classic Jane B. par Agnès V., the 1988 docudrama about Jane Birkin.
The animation No Dogs or Italians Allowed (Interdit aux chiens et aux Italiens) is based on the true story of Luigi, an immigrant who clandestinely crosses the Italian border in the 1920s to start a new life in France.
All films for MyFrenchFilmFestival 2024 are now available to pre-order on IFI@Home.
All films will be available to stream from January 19th – February 19th.
Once you have rented your film from IFI@Home, it will remain active in your Library for 72 hours. Once you click play, you will have 48 hours to finish watching.
A full festival bundle is available from the IFI here, offering all 11 films for just €49.99.