Institut français du Royaume-Uni

Fête de la musique

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:00:40 +0000

La Fête de la musique, also known as Music Day in the UK, was launched on 21 June 1982 in France with the aim of encouraging amateur and professional musicians to provide free concerts across all genres for the public. It has since become a worldwide phenomenon, taking place in more than 460 cities in 110 countries.

This year’s celebration is centred around the theme of the voice. 21 June is still the official date, but events at the Institut français will take place on the following day and include a concert at Ciné Lumière. Guests include the fabulously agile Malagasy guitarist, singer and songwriter Nogabe Randriaharimalala, playing in a lively trio format with two percussionists, and Senegalese singer and guitarist Moudu Touré (son of famed vocalist Touré Kounda), who has developed a strong signature style mixing Afro-blues, pop and folk. Special guests to be announced.

5.00pm | free

Zola & Manet

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:54:24 +0000

Following the great success of the Manet exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, this talk by Professor Robert Lethbridge, Master of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge will deal with the relationship between Zola and Manet, as evidenced in Zola’s writings and Manet’s 1968 painting.

Fri 21 June 6.00pm | £3 (including a glass of wine), free for members of the Emile Zola society

Info & booking: chantalouifru@yahoo.co.uk

Tribute to Louis Pouzin

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:50:27 +0000

The Internet and the World Wide Web is an engineering achievement that has changed the direction of the world. The Internet WW led to a communications revolution of unprecedented power and impact. Today a third of the world’s 7 billion population use the internet and estimates are that it carries 330 Petabytes of data per year. This is enough to transfer every character ever written in every book ever published twenty times over. On 25 June, the first Queen Elisabeth Prize for Engineering will be awarded to five people who made major contributions to the development of the internet and the WWW: Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreesen each played a significant part in the development of the technology. Louis Pouzin, Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf made seminal contributions to the protocols (or standards) that together make up the fundamental architecture of the Internet. Louis Pouzin is a graduate from Polytechnique, the prestigious French engineering school. He is known in particular to have led the ‘Cyclades’ project, the first network in which linked computers pilot the transit of their own data. He invented the concept of ‘datagrams’ (telegrams of data) which is at the origin of the ‘packet switching’ base of the internet, developed then by Vinton Cerf, creator of the TCP / IP protocol. Louis Pouzin will tell us more about the genesis of Internet along with his engineering fellows.

Wed 26 June 6.00pm | free

Aimé Césaire: A Centenary Celebration Conference

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:48:45 +0000

Aimé Césaire, the great poet, politician, visionary and playwright as been hailed as the leading francophone poet of the twentieth century and one of the prophets of negritude – the 1930s black consciousness movement whose steadfast aim was to ‘decolonise the mind’ and reassert pride in the African cultural values of the diaspora. Césaire, who died in 2008, was an intellectual of great discernment and eloquence; an artist of the avant garde who championed non-Western cultural forms. His influence upon post-colonial discourse is abiding. This international and inter-disciplinary conference, featuring an array of distinguished speakers, will honour and explore Aimé Césaire’s life, work and legacy. Selections of his poetry and plays will be recited and performed.

Mon 24 June 9.30am – 6.00pm | £20

To register and for further information, please contact Dr Philip Crispin, University of Hull: p.crispin@hull.ac.uk

Paris Seen By… British Artists

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:46:22 +0000

A unique opportunity to see Stephen Duffy, curator of the exhibition The Discovery of Paris, Watercolours by British Artists at the Wallace Collection, on the very day of its opening. He will discuss the travels of 19th century British artists and their favourite subjects during their Grand Tour. He will go over the remarkable contribution of the British to the iconography of Paris, and compare them with the visions offered by French Impressionists painters just a few decades later.

£3

Like Someone in Love

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:25:36 +0000

Like Someone in Love, named after Ella Fitzgerald’s jazz standard, is a droll, elegant and playful film preoccupied with identities mistaken and assumed, laced with references to the films of Yasujiro Ozu. Akiko, a pretty and slightly distant sociology student works nights as a high-class escort. Instead of studying for her exams and meeting her grandmother, she reluctantly goes to the house of her latest client, retired sociology professor Takashi. The next morning, she allows him to give her a ride to university, crossing paths with her volatile boyfriend, Noriaki. The latter assume that the kind old man is Akiko’s grandfather, thus allowing an odd role-playing routine to begin, until,perhaps, the hoax is discovered. After Certified Copy and Ten, Like Someone in Love offers, with pristine images and long takes of the streets of Tokyo at night, a new facet of Kiarostami’s study of human relations and unforeseeable encounters.

£8, conc. £6

Before Midnight

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:20:36 +0000

In 1995, they won our hearts with the honesty of Before Sunrise. In 2004, that resonant magic was revisited in Before Sunset. Now, in the eagerly anticipated third chapter in the star-crossed tale of Jesse and Celine, Richard Linklater fast-forwards to nine years after the last meeting in what just may be the ending to the perfect trilogy. Witty heartfelt dialogue seamlessly mixes with signature long takes to bring this couple to yet another crossroads in a twisting but passionate relationship. As Jesse and Celine have matured, so has their bond and candor, as familiarity, life’s ups and downs and time itself add refinement and a fresh lyrical quality to this most recent encounter. The film casually and intelligently touches on matters big and small while the challenges of this relationship are spun with brilliant honesty, wit and humor. Richly captured by Christos Voudouris, the picturesque streets of Greece serve as the latest backdrop to this beautifully crafted love story. Linklater and his collaborators have clearly saved their best for last.

£8, conc. £6

Charade

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:12:14 +0000

Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn star in this stylish comedy-thriller directed by Stanley Donen, very much in a Hitchcock vein. Grant plays Peter Joshua, who meets Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) in Paris and later offers to help her when she discovers that her husband has been murdered. After the funeral, Reggie is summoned to the embassy and warned by agent/friend Bartholemew (Walter Matthau) that her late husband helped steal 250,000 dollars during the war and that the rest of the gang is after the money as well. Reggie is caught in a ring of suspense as she is followed by the shadowy trio, all after the money, and doesn’t know where to turn. Who can she trust?

The Girl from Nowhere

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:02:52 +0000

Michel, a retired math teacher, lives alone since his wife’s death and spends his time writing an essay about the human beliefs that shape daily life. One day he comes accross Dora, a young homeless woman, who shows up injured … More

Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution

admin — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:01:43 +0000

Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution traces the development of Iranian film industry, which has always been closely intertwined with the country’s tumultuous political history, from the decades-long reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi and his son, the rise of Khomeini and the … More