UWM Union Theatre presents
The 16th Annual Festival of Films in French
In memory of Dr. Sheldon Stone
February 8-17, 2013
All films are in French and other languages w/English subtitles. Talkbacks follow certain screenings.
All films are FREE and open to the public!
The UWM 16th Annual Festival of Films in French celebrates the wide range of French-language cinema, with a spotlight on four films from multicultural Québec. The Festival's fourteen films, many of them Milwaukee premieres, take audiences from Montreal to the northern provinces of Canada, from Cameroon (La Banane) to Paris (intra and extramuros), from New York (Dancing Forever) to the Middle East, and beyond. The Festival opens and closes with debut feature films by two up-and-coming directors: the introspective and moving Roméo 11, shot all across Montreal, and the edgy and engrossing ‘guerilla' film Donoma, shot in and around Paris on a 150 euro budget (both Milwaukee premieres). The Festival highlights strong performances by the inimitable and versatile Josiane Balasko, as the concierge in The Hedgehog, and by the gauche but lovable Fabrice Luchini in Women on the 6th Floor. This year's film offerings explore class and racial differences, family dramas (such as grown children seeking their birth parents in Mesnak and Incendies), stock characters with a twist (such as Le Vendeur), the environment, immigration issues, and tragic events in history. A double feature, co-sponsored by UWM's Jewish Studies Program, brings together the documentary Moi, petite fille de 13 ans and the feature film Les Hommes libres, both set in World War II occupied France (followed by talkbacks). As a clin d'oeil to Valentine's Day, our now annual classic film night selection is the stunningly beautiful and stirring love story La Belle et la bête. Michel Ocelot's Contes de la nuit is this year's selection for younger viewers and will also be shown in conjunction with SWAAF's annual French Day, which brings several hundred high school students to UWM's campus. Last but not least, the Festival continues its tradition of silent films with live musical accompaniment, celebrating Mardi Gras in style with the Milwaukee premiere of Marcel L'Herbier's tantalizing 1921 film El Dorado.
This program is made possible with the generous support of the Québec Government Office in Chicago and Dr. Richard Stone. We are also grateful to our many UWM co-sponsors: the Jewish Studies Program, Union Programming, Union Sociocultural Programming, the Center for International Education (CIE), the Women's Studies Program, the Film Studies Program, the Film Department, the Department of Africology, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Art History, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Department of French, Italian, and Comparative Literature (FICL), and the MA in Language, Literature and Translation (MALLT). We greatly appreciate the community co-sponsorship of the Alliance Française of Milwaukee and of SWAAF (Southeast Wisconsin Academic Alliance in French).