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Wide Angle at la Médiathèque |
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Sept - Oct
While the Ciné lumière is closed for renovation, some screenings continue as part of la Médiathèque's weekly film club series, Wide Angle.
All of these films have been provided by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Universcine website.
Every week | £4, conc. £3 | in the Library
| | | Les Apprentis France | 1995 | col | 95 mins | dir. Pierre Salvadori with François Cluzet, Guillaume Depardieu, Marie Trintignant
Frédéric, a shy young engine geek, and Antoine, a hypochondriac playwright, live for free in a squalid flat spending their time on drunken antics and surviving on the meagre income derived from Antoine's ad hoc journalism and Frédéric's pretty thievery. Their life falls apart when their absentee landlord casually announces his grandfather is selling the flat and they must move out. Things are further complicated when Frédéric falls for Agnès, an angelic young actress and pretends to be a brilliant photographer in order to befriend her.
|  | | :: Mon 22 sept | 7.30pm | cert. 15 | Bye Bye France | 1996 | col | 105 mins | dir. Karim Dridi, with Sami Bouajila, Nozha Khouadra, Philippe Ambrosini
Following a tragic family death, Ismael drives to Marseilles with his young teenage brother Mouloud to stay with their uncle’s family. Ismael finds work and new friends, but his brother through a drug-dealer cousin discovers Marseilles’ criminal underworld. This important contribution to the cinéma beur (French-Arabic cinema) which came to prominence in France in the 1980s and 1990s features an impressive performance by Sami Bouajila, one of France’s key beur actors.
|  | | :: Thu 2 Oct | 7.30pm | cert. 15 | Ambitious (Les Ambitieux) France | 2007 | col | 90 mins | dir. Catherine Corsini, with Karin Viard, Eric Caravaca, Jacques Weber
'A primer on back-stabbing in French cultural circles, crossed with a post-screwball romance' (Variety), Ambitious follows the fortunes of Julien, a young and passionate author who finds himself romantically entangled with a fearsome and neurotic publishing executive, Judith. After discovering the captivating story of Judith’s father, a philosopher in the 1970s who died fighting the guerrillas in Latin America, Julien decides to write a book without her permission. Soon a battle of egos ensues, hearts are broken and vengeance is sought.
|  | | :: Thu 9 Oct |7.30pm | cert. 15 | Le Ventre de Juliette France | col | 92 mins | dir. Martin Provost, with Julie-Marie Parmentier, Stéphane Rideau, Carmen Maura, Tom Novembre, Patrick Chesnais
In working-class Marseille, when teenaged Juliette becomes pregnant, she and her boyfriend disagree over what to do. To her the baby is sacred – she can hear it singing in her stomach; he just wants an abortion. Juliette angrily rejects the solutions everyone else has for her life, including her controlling older sister (who tries to marry her off), her wacky kleptomaniac mother, Julia (a star turn by Carmen Maura), and an older married man who reaches out to her. This touching drama, shot with style and grace, attempts touches on the mysteries of birth and the complex family relationships that are its legacy.
|  | | :: Thu 16 oct 7.30pm | cert. 15 | Dust of Life (Poussières de vie) France | 1995 | col | 87mins | dir. Rachid Bouchareb, with Cheong Peck Beng, Gilles Chitlaphone, Lina Chua
From the director of last year's Oscar-nominated Days of Glory, Dust of Life tells the story of Son, the son of an African-American soldier and a Vietnamese mother. After the fall of Saigon (1975) he tries in vain to leave Vietnam with his mother. On the way from school he is caught by the Vietnamese Bo-doi guards who send him to a Communist indoctrination camp in the north. To escape the camp (and the physical and mental torture he is subjected to there) he and friends Bob and Hai hatch a daring plan to escape via the river to the sea and on – to America.
|  | | Thu 23 Oct | 7.30pm | cert. 15 | |
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