The full programme has been announced for the Irish Film Institute’s annual celebration of French Film. From 13 – 24 November, the IFI French Film Festival 2024 will share over 35 titles from the nation du cinéma, including retrospective odes to Varda and Duras, a lavish opening gala, and even a Chaplin from the archives. This year will be a landmark occasion for the festival, which has shared the best of new and classic French films for the last 25 years.
The exciting programme for the 25th annual celebration of French film at the Irish Film Institute has been announced today. This 12-day celebration, of over 35 titles, will present works exploring a wide range of subjects by many renowned and established directors, as well as showcasing exciting new voices in cinema. With a lavish Opening Gala for this landmark year of festivities, a masterclass and slate of fantastic Q&As to discuss and explore the work, and a bespoke IFI Café Bar menu of French delicacies, this year is a standout cinematic experience. Female artists and filmmakers including Sonia Kronlund, Louise Courvoisier, Sophie Fillières, Agathe Riedinger, and Claire Burger feature strongly in the line-up, alongside retrospective tributes to female auteurs and filmmaking trailblazers Marguerite Duras and Agnès Varda. The programme will also include Jean-Luc Godard’s final two films and A Woman of Paris by Charlie Chaplin. Festival guests will include Stéphane Brizé, Philippe Lesage, Stéphane Demoustier, and Céline Sallette.
“As the largest celebration of French culture in Ireland, the programme at this year’s IFI French Film Festival is truly superb, reflecting one of the strongest years of French cinema in recent times. The selection is broad and varied, featuring many faces which will be familiar to fans of French film, alongside some remarkable, emerging new talents, both in front of and behind the camera.”
Ross Keane, IFI Director
The festival’s Opening Gala will be Out of Season by Stéphane Brizé at 8pm on Wednesday, November 13th. Stéphane Brizé will also be in conversation with Paul Whitington for a Masterclass at the IFI on Saturday, November 23rd.
Piano teacher Alice (Alba Rohrwacher) lives in a small seaside town. She and Mathieu (Guillaume Canet), a well-known actor living in Paris, have not seen each other since separating 15 years ago. Reminiscent of classics such as Truffaut’s The Woman Next Door or Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, Stéphane Brizé (Another World; The Measure of Man) creates a timeless romance about the ghosts of love.
Céline Sallette will attend the screening of her film Niki, a portrait of artist Niki de Saint Phalle featuring an acclaimed turn from Charlotte Le Bon. In Sallette’s directorial debut, Sallette’s directorial debut – French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (Charlotte Le Bon) leaves the US for Paris with her husband, writer Harry Mathews (John Robinson), joining the Parisian art scene of the fifties, the Nouveaux Réalistes group. De Saint Phalle (1930-2002) is best known for her monumental Nanas sculptures. Sallette depicts Niki’s psychological journey, as she mines her personal history for inspiration; her traumatic childhood, self-destructive behaviour, and her ultimate transformation, becoming an accomplished avant-garde artist and feminist icon.
Two shorts by Godard are an eye-catching addition to the programme. At the time of Jean-Luc Godard’s assisted death on September 13th, 2022, he had been working on his final feature, Scénario, but in the days before this, Godard instructed his assistants Jean-Paul Battaggia and Fabrice Aragno to complete the feature in two segments: Scénarios (18 mins); and Exposé pour un film annonce du film ‘Scénario’ (36 mins). This gift of two more ‘last films’ from Godard layers paintings, collage, film, stills, texts and sounds, and includes a rare text from Sartre read on screen by JLG himself. These can be seen at the IFI on Sunday, 24th November. A film by Charlie Chaplin will also emerge from the archives. Having built his career as both an actor and director of silent cinema, Chaplin confounded audiences when he followed up his first feature, The Kid, with a serious melodrama, A Woman of Paris. Applauded by the press but rejected by the public, Chaplin himself pulled the film from distribution. Yet this brilliant film reveals his dramatic genius with understated acting and deft storytelling. It stands as one of Chaplin’s greatest directorial achievements, acclaimed by filmmakers from Lubitsch to Scorsese.

The IFI French Film Festival will also feature films for all the family (if your kids don’t like Godard). From Claude Barra, the director of the memorable, award-winning stop-motion, Ma Vie de Courgette, comes the eagerly anticipated Sauvages, environmental-themed fable, set in the rainforest of Borneo, a lush, fertile land, where nature and the life of the indigenous Penan people are under threat. When 11-year-old Keria rescues an abandoned baby orangutan, she is spurred to save the animal and campaign against the destruction of the forest, along with her forestry worker dad and her indigenous cousin, who has sought refuge in their home.
After the screening on Sunday 24th you can head to the IFI Foyer for a fun environmental-themed craft workshop. To encourage young animators (Next Gen 15-19) on Saturday 16th, a stop-motion workshop in association with National Talent Academy Animation will also take place before the screening. Places are limited, so if you’re interested get in contact with ctobin@irishfilm.ie to reserve places.
“Join us in celebrating the 25th anniversary of the IFI French Film Festival! The French Embassy is proud to support this very special edition, featuring once again the best of contemporary French cinema. Dive into the vibrant stories and culture of France, bon festival!”
Céline Place, French Ambassador to Ireland
It’s a packed programme and a fitting tribute to over two decades of one of Ireland’s best film festivals, this November at the IFI French Film Festival. See the full Festival schedule now HERE.
Tickets are on sale now from via https://ifi.ie/frenchfest/.