In the run-up to The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) at the end of October, we picked through a box of “chocolat” to select a few of the yummier-looking titles of the sixty films that will be on offer at the Director’s Guild of America, October 29 thru November 3, 2024.
This Festival is among our favorite of annual events. It’s in its 28th annual outing, and friends and fans of TAFFF know it’s so much more than movies. It’s about cultural exchange. It’s about current events but from a differing perspective. It’s about, especially in its opening night festivities, fashion and food. But hey, we love it just for its core offering, le cinéma français, the latest and best movies to come out of France. Of the sixty, many are North American or West Coast premieres — including full length features, short films, documentaries, television programming, replete with Q/As and in-person appearances by stars and directors. It’s French, so that there is a daily wine and cheese reception for attendees of professional panels called the Happy Hour Talks.
Here’s arts•meme‘s “chocolat” box of picks amongst the 60 films. Bear in mind, this is my taste, I like hazelnuts, you may like that gooey cream filling, or coconut. You can pick your favorites here.
EMILIA PÉREZ (Special Screening – OPENING NIGHT FILM, October 29) – MUSICAL/DRAMA/THRILLER. Written and directed by Jacques Audiard. (US distributor: Netflix) It is an opera, a redemption narrative, a cartel thriller, a story of trans identity, a soapy melodrama, and about a dozen other things combined. The film, being released by Netflix, follows Rita (Zoe Saldana), a lawyer living in Mexico City who works defending criminals from the consequences of their actions. When Rita is taken to meet cartel leader, she is shocked by his request: He wants her to find a doctor who can discreetly perform gender confirmation surgery and help complete his transition to becoming the woman he has always known he is. (Thank you, Entertainment Weekly, for the text.)
SAINT-EXUPÉRY (North American Premiere) – BIOPIC/DRAMA/ADVENTURE. Written and directed by Pablo Agüero. Argentina, 1930. Free-spirited Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a pilot for the French airmail service Aéropostale, flying alongside legendary aviator Henri Guillaumet. The future of their company threatened by more efficient means of transportation, Saint-Exupéry and his partner seek out dangerous shortcuts over the mountains. But when Guillaumet vanishes in the Andes, Saint-Exupéry embarks on a perilous journey to rescue him. Thirteen years after that extraordinary adventure, Saint-Exupéry published one of the world’s most beloved children’s books, The Little Prince.
ONCE UPON A TIME MICHEL LEGRAND – DOCUMENTARY. Written and directed by David Hertzog Dessites. From The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to The Thomas Crown Affair to Yentl, from French New Wave composer to the toast of Hollywood with three Oscars to his name, the film charts the course of a brilliant career and of an extraordinary artist, right up to and including his exceptionally moving final performance.
BOLÉRO (US Premiere) – BIOPIC/DRAMA. Directed by Anne Fontaine. Paris in the 1920s. Russian choreographer Ida Rubenstein commissions Maurice Ravel — already considered France’s greatest living composer — to write the score for her next ballet — “something carnal, something bewitching, something erotic.” The phlegmatic Ravel comes up empty… and is thrust into a protracted creative limbo. A tribute to the timelessness of the composer’s haunting masterpiece, Bolero, writer-director Anne Fontaine takes us on a deconstructed, elliptical journey through the idiosyncratic life of Maurice Ravel, in his struggle to complete that 17-minute piece of music.
DEATH OF A CORRUPT MAN (Special Screening – Tribute to Alain Delon) – POLITICAL THRILLER. Directed by George Lautner. Written by Georges Lautner, Michel Audiard, and Claude Sautet. Xavier Maréchal’s doorbell suddenly rings at 5 a.m. It’s his old friend, Senator Philippe Dubaye, with disturbing news. He’s just killed Serrano, a mobster with big-time political connections. Xavier instantly offers to serve as his pal’s alibi. However, the plot thickens. The magnificent Alain Delon earned his second César Award nomination for his depiction of Maréchal, apparently the only honest man in a Paris teeming with corruption, in George Lautner‘s moody 1977 film noir. The sultry jazz score by Philippe Sarde, featuring the lyrical tenor sax of the great Stan Getz, weaves its way through the film.
THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO CLOSING NIGHT FILM – DRAMA/ADVENTURE. Written and directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière. A heroic young first mate, Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney), freshly promoted to ship’s captain and finally in a position to marry his secret love. However, on the very morning of their wedding day, Edmond is wrongfully arrested for a crime he knows nothing of — a plot hatched by three of the most ruthless of rivals— and shipped off to the formidable Château d’If prison, off the coast of Marseille. A story examining the nature of revenge, justice, mercy and forgiveness.
We’ll see you at TAFFF! Et bon appetit!
The American French Film Festival | Director’s Guild of America Building | Oct 29 – Nov 4