14th Cinefranco a Toronto

Cinéfranco, English Canada’s largest celebration of international francophone cinema is celebrating its fourteenth year in Toronto from Friday, March 25 – Sunday, April 3, 2011 at Toronto’s new centre for film lovers - the TIFF Bell Lightbox as well as the NFB Mediatheque.  Cinéfranco 2011 is an oasis for lovers of francophone cinema with 7 North American Premieres, 3 Canadian Premieres, and 10 English Canadian Premieres and a showcase of 27 features, 7 documentaries and 10 shorts.

Also at Cinéfranco 2011, master classes with Moroccan film director Driss Chouika (Destins croisés /Crossed Destinies) and a conversation with Professor Eric Jennings (U of T) and celebrated TFO film critic Yves-Etienne Massicotte on understanding the immigration malaise in France through its colonial history. In partnership with FRIC (the Front for Independent Filmmakers in Canada), Cinéfranco will present two debates on fiction past, present and future with Jean-Marc Larivière, Dominic Desjardins and Dany Chiasson as well as the debate on the distribution and marketing of Francophone documentaries in Canada with talented Canadian documentarists Fadel Saleh, Suzy Cohen, Jocelyn Forgues and Suzanne Chiasson at the Blackberry Lounge on March 27th.

Marcelle Lean, Founder/Artistic & Executive Director of Cinéfranco says of this year’s festival, “Family is the thread that runs through much of this year’s Cinéfranco program.  From ‘policiers’ to comedies and thrillers, to adventures, documentaries and dramas - films from Algeria, Belgium, Canada (Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick), France, Morocco and Switzerland by master filmmakers with stars like Gérard Depardieu, Natalie Baye, Patrick Bruel, Isabelle Huppert, Canada’s Saul Rubinek, and Sabine Azema explore the ties of blood, as well as families created by need or circumstance.”

Cinéfranco’s 2011’s Opening Night film (English Canada Premiere) is a psychological drama in the tradition of Hitchcock.  Impasse du désir directed by Michel Rodde and starring Quebec superstar Rémy Girard, is a Swiss film with an international cast including Natacha Regnier, the Belgian actress in the role of Carole Block, who cheats on her older husband (Rémy Girard).  Robert (Girard), a psychiatrist is obsessed with the situation, preventing him from concentrating on his patients until he meets Leo Debod, a depressive and psychotic bachelor who Robert realizes will provide him with the perfect means of relieving his suffering……………

Director Michel Rodde will present his film Impasse du désir at Cinéfranco.

Quebec actor Rémy Girard will be in attendance at Cinéfranco with two films:

The Swiss thriller, Impasse du désir and Quebecois comedy Y’en aura pas de facile (Tough Luck).

This year’s Closing Night film, Comme les 5 doigts de la main (5 Brothers) is an English Canadian Premiere by French director Alexandre Arcady.  Well known for his sagas of North African (Pieds Noirs) Jewish families, Arcady combines the drama of a complex family and the discovery of a secret that will tear the brothers apart.  A captivating thriller, 5 Brothers features a cast of renowned French actors including Patrick Bruel, Pascal Elbé (also seen in Tête de Turc/Turk’s Head), Eric Caravaca (also seen at Cinéfranco in La Petite chambre/The Little Room), Vincent Elbaz (also seen at Cinéfranco in Tellement proches/Happy Together), Françoise Fabian, and Michel Aumont (also seen at Cinéfranco in Les Invités de mon père/My Father’s Guests).

Canada’s contribution to Cinéfranco 2011 includes features, shorts and documentaries from Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.

Montreal has rarely been so beautiful on film in Yves Simoneau’s L’Appât. Simoneau’s spoof on spy films pairs two hilariously dysfunctional characters:  Philibert Poirier, prudent and awkward, is an agent for La Sûreté du Québec (SQ).  Ventura is a James Bond like daredevil elite French spy, fluent in eight languages.  The murder of the Montreal Mafia’s ‘Godfather’ prompts the odd couple’s investigation in this fast paced action-comedy.

Another comedy from Quebec –Y’en aura pas de facile (Tough Luck) stars Rémy Girard as Réjean, a professional biographer who has to send a DVD introducing himself to a dating website.  Easy for a pro right?  As Réjean tells us the action packed funny moments of his life, his stories swing between fiction and reality in this light as a feather comedy.

Director Marc André Lavoie will present his film Y’en aura pas de facile (Tough Luck)at Cinéfranco.

Family has a darker side in Deux fois une femme (Twice a Woman). Director François Delisle delivers a moving poetic film on a battered wife who wins back her self-esteem.  Evelyne Rompré is striking as Catherine, who slowly moves from a victim into a woman of strength. Filmmaker François Delisle, confirms his talent as a director who understands women and details their tragic dilemmas with sensitivity and integrity.

Director François Delisle will present his film Deux fois une femme (Twice a Woman) at Cinéfranco.

Dany Papineau’s charming coming of age story 2 frogs dans l’Ouest (2 frogs in the West) finds twenty year old Quebecois Marie Deschamps bucking family pressure to look for her own identity.  Marie leaves her studies and home behind to look for adventure, and to learn English, hitch-hiking to Whistler where the Great Adventure of her life begins: encounters, job search, new friends, new love, self-discovery………

Actors Mirianne Brûlé and Jessica Malka will be in attendance for 2 frogs dans l’Ouest (2 frogs in the West) at Cinéfranco.

Six documentaries by talented Canadian filmmakers will be showcased at Cinéfranco 2011:

Symphonia by Quebec filmmaker Suzy Cohen, shows how immigrants from various countries have gathered in spite of enormous adversity to form a symphonic orchestra. They left their countries filled with the dreams of pursuing their careers in music and they clashed with the harsh reality of surviving in a new country.

Filmmaker Suzy Cohen will present her film at Cinéfranco 2011, as well as participating on a panel on the marketing and distribution of francophone documentaries in Canada (Sunday, March 27, 10:30am at the Blackberry Lounge at TIFF Bell Lightbox)

The moving 25min documentary Mémoires d’un magasin général (Memoirs of a General Store) by Jocelyn Forgues, an independent Franco-Ontarian filmmaker follows 12 year-old Julie’s dreams of leaving her small town to go to a filmmaking camp in Toronto. As she is trying to prove that she has the talent of a future filmmaker, she starts a video chronicle on the General Store of her village and gets acquainted with a WWII veteran. He recalls his days in the Canadian army. The memories are so astonishing that they shed a new light on this brutal war. Julie discovers a true hero.

Director Jocelyn Forgues will present her film Mémoires d’un magasin général (Memoirs of a General Store)) at Cinéfranco.

Donald Mc Graw et le Cercle des chefs pays tribute to the twelve major Native chiefs of New Brunswick. Directed by Suzanne Chiasson, the film is about an Acadian painter, Donald McGraw, who sets out to meet Mi’gmaq, Malecite and Passamaquody Chiefs. 

Franco African Vital Kasongo who lives in Toronto will present the biopic of the legend Champion boxer Sanbu Kalambu entitled L’épopée de Sanbu Kalambu . It is a very genuine, charismatic and endearing look at the life of the champion.

Les Conspirationnistes by seasoned Franco Ontarian documentarian Fadel Saleh is thought provoking and original.  The conspiracy theory fascinates with its unsolved questions, its mysterious ways of challenging the mind and the heart.  Fadel Saleh investigates the places where the “Conspirationnistes” gather to talk, to read, to tell each other the latest discoveries

Director Fadel Saleh will present his film Les Conspirationnistes at Cinéfranco.

Dany Chiasson, a Toronto based filmmaker and producer, is presenting her beautiful documentary Ma Jeanne d’Arc (My Joan of Arc). Blessed with a grand-mother named Jeanne d’Arc, Dany takes us on a historic, poetic and ultimately personal journey to re-live one of the crucial episodes of Joan of Arc, the saint and savior of France. Dany’s declaration of love to her grand-mother falls into the great theme of family.

Director Dany Chiasson will present her film Ma Jeanne d’Arc (My Joan of Arc) at Cinéfranco.

One feature documentary from France rounds-out Cinéfranco 2011’s documentary program:

In Kigali Jérusalem, French filmmaker Jérémie Fazel explores the similarities of the Shoah tragedies with the Tutsi genocide in 1994.  Young people travel to Rwanda and France to reflect on keeping the memory of the tragic Jewish and Tutsi genocides alive through present and future generations.

Cinéfranco is always proud to showcase Canadian short films by promising filmmakers. This year’s program on Monday, March 28 at 6:30pm at the TIFF Bell Lightbox is no exception.

La Monstre (She-Monster) by Dominic Goyer (whose captivating short La Robe blanche was at Cinéfranco 2010) unravels the story of a teenager who dreams of being on a TV reality show to escape her own reality.  With Faits divers filmmaker Patrick Goyette also delves in the gritty world of a teenager plagued by a difficult life.  A lighter note prevails with the whimsical and clever La Guérison (The Cure) by Louis-Thomas Pelletier and Chewing Gomme (Chewing-gum) by Benoît Desjardin.  In Chloe Robichaud’s Moi non plus, a recent graduate is afraid of her future but her relationship with a powerful politician will force her to consider her lifes’ choices.  Three macho men face off against a cabin intruder in Martin Thibaudeau’s L’homme et la bête (Man and the Beast), a task that requires more hunting instincts than they can muster.

In Nicolas Bolduc’s short, King Chicken goes to a language lab to learn English where he meets a beautiful woman, but will he be able to approach her?  And in Jean-Pierre Desmarais’ The Bench, a mysterious book left on a park bench provokes diverse reactions and emotions to all who see it.

D’une Rive à l’Autre, by Maxime Desmons will precede the film Les Invités de mon père (My Father’s Guests – Saturday, April 2, 7:30pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox) as it deals with family tyrannical expectations. Young Marielle, an immigrant from Africa, falls in love with a female co-worker. But her brother has other plans for her as he arranged a marriage between Marielle and his best friend. Marielle’s dilemma rings so true thanks to great acting, touching songs and beautiful direction.

Director Maxime Desmons will present his film D’une Rive à l’Autre at Cinéfranco.

Showcasing the quality and diversity of films from francophone countries has always been part of Cinéfranco’s ongoing vision.  Along with films from Canada and Quebec, Cinéfranco is pleased to show films this year from Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and Switzerland, along with French co-productions involving directors, writers and cast from Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and Norway.

Marcelle Lean says of this year’s program; “This year’s films from North Africa give a humorous glimpse at life in villages dealing with gossip and the intrusion of filmmaking, and of the reunion of a group of friends involved in politics, a hot topic these days in the Arab world.  Cinéfranco 2011 continues its tradition of showing the latest films from France commenting on its North African diaspora.  Many of this year’s films from France are also piquant and zesty comedies!”

The joie de vivre of family life can be enjoyed in many comédies at Cinéfranco 2011 featuring all star casts including Nathalie Baye, Pierre Arditi, Michel Aumont, Isabelle Huppert and her real life daughter Lolita Chammah, Karin Viard, Fabrice Luchini, Daniel Auteuil, Sabine Azema, Michel Bouquet, Gérard Depardieu and Canadian actor Saul Rubinek, who may be attending the festival.

Tellement proches (Happy Together) is the story of former Club Med DJ and man-child Alain, having trouble adapting to married family life. Deciding to explore his options to leave his wife he ends up squatting in his father’s apartment who isn’t too mature for his age either!  Parents aren’t what they used to be, behaving like immature adolescents

letting their children live like adults.

In Ensemble c’est trop, Clémentine and Sébastien, young parents stretched between jobs and children, have to accommodate Sébastien’s mother Marie-France (Nathalie Baye) determined to move in after her husband cheats on her with a mistress who is pregnant. 

Funny and bittersweet, Les Invités de mon père (My Father’s Guests) stars Karin Viard and Fabrice Luchini as the scheming adult children of an elderly humanitarian doctor who fear their inheritance is in jeopardy when he marries a young Moldavian woman for immigration purposes.

A crowd pleaser, Anne Le Ny filmmaker blends comedy with ethical issues of immigration. In the Franco-Algerian comedy Mascarades (Masquerades) Mounir’s narcoleptic sister is no gift for a guy who craves attention and respect in this small Algerian village. His inadvertent drunkard’s rambling is going to bring him reward …and not so much reward.

Real life mother and daughter (Isabelle Huppert, Lolita Chammah) shine in Copacabana.  Bold and unconventional, Babou (Huppert) has never cared about social convention but comes to the sudden realization that even her daughter (Chammah) is ashamed of her, refusing to invite her to her wedding.  Babou tries to win her daughter’s respect by starting anew, with a job as a salesperson for a time share in off-season Belgium – hilarity ensues! 

Based on the real life story of director Anne Depetrini, Il reste du jambon?(Bacon On the Side) is a charming romantic comedy about the ups and downs of Justine, blond Parisien journalist and darkly handsome ER doctor Djalil of North African descent who fall madly in love at first sight. 

Darkly comic, Isabelle Mergault’s Donnant , donnant(Fair is fair) a story of black mail and love, is a showcase for actors Daniel Auteuil and Sabine Azéma. 

French comedy duo Eric et Ramzy star in Halal, police d’Etat (Halal Five-O) as Nerh Nerh, a talented inspector from a tiny Algerian village and Kabyle, a crazy detective.  They travel to Paris to investigate the murder of an Algerian diplomat’s sister. Naturally they clash with the sophisticated French National Police who understand none of the

shenanigans from these two.

Rounding out Cinéfranco 2011’s comedy line-up is RTT (Day Off), starring the very popular comic actor Kad Merad .  One day Arthur’s live-in girlfriend announces she’s leaving him to get married in Miami.  Arthur decides to use his days off to dissuade her, and travels to Miami where an art thief slips a stolen painting in his luggage.  A spectacular series of adventures turns Arthur’s life upside down!

Two films at Cinéfranco 2011 have been hailed as cult favourites in Europe, now Toronto audiences get to enjoy Kill Me Please and Mammuth.

A Belgian film that has attained cult status Kill Me Please has been called fantastic, strange, somber and hilarious.  Riding the current wave of Belgian black comedies, Olias Barco’s picked up the top prize at the Rome festival this fall.  Dr. Kruger (Aurélien Recoing) offers wealthy patients with terminal illnesses the chance to die with dignity, and a flute of champagne. Among the clients are combative millionaire Mr Vidal (Bouli Lanners), larger-than-life diva Rachel (Zazie de Paris) and neurotic American Jack (Saul Rubinek).

Actor Saul Rubinek will be in attendance for Kill Me Please at Cinéfranco. (TBC)

Mammuth, starring the incomparable Gérard Depardieu in one of his best roles yet, and the irrepressible Yolande Moreau, is a road trip like no other.  At the ripe age of 60, Serge (Depardieu) can’t get his pension because he is missing documents from his past jobs. His wife (Moreau) tells him to go get them.  Serge hits the road on his 1970 Mammuth bike.  His trip across France is packed with realistic, humorous and sometimes strange encounters.  Le Monde said of Depardieu’s performance: “Under the pretence of an elephant-like course trip, Depardieu reveals to be the artist he has never ceased to be: a huge romantic actor in need of love and tenderness.”

This year Cinéfranco is proud to present dramas from France and Switzerland that show a darker side of family life.

A drama about the tragic loss of a baby by a young couple, La Petite Chambre (The Little Room), was this year’s Swiss selection for an Oscar nomination. The filmmakers, Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond are also actresses and their film tells the tender tale of Rose, a home care nurse who gives birth to a still born child. Still grieving, she quickly returns to work, looking after her elderly client Edmond, whose son wants to place him in a nursing home.  The profoundly hurt nurse and the fragile elderly man are going to take care of each other…

Also from Switzerland Dechaînées (Unleashed), which won Switzerland’s Best Film for Television in 2009 Raymond Vouillamoz’s fascinating film exposes a family in crisis, confronted with a buried secret and revisits a period in Swiss history in the seventies when Swiss women were fighting for their rights, only acquiring the right to vote in 1971.

Taking its title from a Zen proverb promising an ultimate reward for perseverance (seven times down, eight times up) Huit fois debout (Eight Times Up), French director-writer Xabi Milia’s debut feature blithely chronicles the respective adventures of two down-and-outers (julie Gayet, Denis Podalydes) who, unable to secure jobs, soon find themselves homeless.  Their situation is increasingly precarious, but both try to bounce back in a world that would keep them at the margins.

The French-Italian adventure film 600 kilos d’or pur (In Gold We Trust”) takes festival goers in another direction.  In Eric Besnard’s film a group of adventurers set out to rob a gold mine in the heart of Guyana.  But the operation goes awry.  600 kilos of pure gold is a mighty weight when you have to lug it on your back!  Soon the thieves are chased down.  Pushed into a hostile jungle the runaways fend for their lives and their gold.

Cinéfranco has always presented films from North Africa and from France’s Arab community who struggle with their new lives in Europe.  This year is no exception with the inclusion of four films ranging from comedy, to drama and a policier – as well as a talk by Professor Eric Jennings of U of T who will attempt to shed light on the malaise caused by Arab immigration in the suburbs of Paris, Lyons and Marseilles.  Prof Jennings talk should place in context the popular trend of “suburb films” such as Fracture and Tête de Turc (Turk’s Head) denouncing the profound drift between Arab immigrants and French society.

Alain Tasma’s Fracture brings the viewer to the heart of the social misery and discord in the suburbs of Paris.  Teaching is a challenge for young Anna Doblinsky faced with teenagers trapped in a dead-end.  One of her most promising students, Lakar, wants to be a cartoonist but a medical error by a Jewish doctor has robbed him of his dream and he and his buddy are going to exact revenge no matter what. Tasma bluntly exposes the dysfunction of the French suburbs, the rise of radical islamists and the importation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into young minds.  As the director himself has said “The film is shocking. Who ever sees it will come out shaken up.”

Equally hard-hitting, is Tête de Turc (Turk’s Head), a policier by Pascal Elbé. En route to a house call in a menacing housing project, physician Simon’s vehicle is ambushed by rock-throwing youths, including Bora, who launches a Molotov cocktail, but then rushes to save Simon before the car explodes. With Simon in a coma, Bora tries to lay low to avoid confrontation with his willful mother, his hooligan buddies, the police and authorities, but he’s soon beaten down by drug dealers angry that he neighborhood is now filled with roving reporters and police patrols. Life for Bora and his family is now endangered.

In the Franco-Algerian comedy Mascarades (Masquerades), a young man Mounir is craving the respect and attention of his fellow villagers in Algeria who ridicule him, including his sister Rym, herself looked down upon by the villagers who say she will never marry.  One night Mounir gets drunk and announces to the whole village that Rym is marrying a very rich man.  The rumour spreads and his luck turns but as the village prepares for the wedding, Mounir is unaware of what Rym has in store for him.

This year Cinéfranco presents films from Morocco, and a master class with Moroccan filmmaker Driss Chouika (Destins croisés) 2011.  Driss Chouika is known for his many accomplishments including three feature films and is well known in the world of television where he is a producer of popular programmes.

In Driss Chouika’s Destins croisés (Crossed Destinees) three 40 something couples respond to the mysterious invitation of Raja, their old friend who disappeared. The threads of their past and present lives are skillfully sown together by a filmmaker with a deep understanding of the political history of Morocco as well as of the individual stories of these university students, ex leftist activists and friends now glued into their bourgeois lives.

Daoud Oulad Sayed’s La Mosquée (The Mosque) is a charming slice of village life.  For a previous film, Waiting for Pasolini, filmmaker Sayed had put up sets on lands he rented from the villagers of Zagora.  Once the shoot wrapped up, the team leaves and sets are destroyed except for one, the set of a faux mosque that had become the local place for worship.  But, for Moha, the farmer of the land where the mosque now stands, this is a disaster.  Moha has to get his land back so he can grow the fruits and vegetables that are his living.  So, Sayed returns to Zagora to make a film that “depicts with humour and tenderness life in this small village as well as the relationship between film and reality, religion and everyday life”.