Films de Femmes

Last April the International Festival Films de Femmes celebrated its twentieth anniversary. Since its beginning, back in 1978, the festival’s main aim was to “…promote films directed by women on subjects of their choice, and to allow for a better understanding of the situation and evolution of women and their cinema in each country represented”. Today, the Créteil-based Films de Femmes is unquestionably one of the most important festivals of women’s film in the world.
Each year, besides the competitive sections (for features, shorts and documentaries) their rich and multi-faceted programme includes a tribute to the career of an actress (this year’s guest of honour was Hanna Schygulla), retrospectives (the 1998 festival focused on African cinema, and highlighted the work of the Senegalese director Safi Faye), a series of forums, and a panorama of new French cinema.
In honour and recognition of their work, we invited festival director Jackie Buet to present her festival at the City of Women. She selected three feature films to represent the festival, each directed by the latest generation of French filmmakers. She will talk on the festival and its achievements, and talk about the major significance of women in French cinema. In addition, this year’s City of Women Video Library consists of twenty Films de Femmes award-winning movies.
In short, this special programme offers a unique opportunity to discover films made in the last two decades in France and elsewhere which, unfortunately, have all too often been neglected.

Films De Femmes: Special Programme

Thursday, 15.October at 3pm
A Conversation with Jackie Buet.
Cankarjev dom, Prešernova 10, Ljubljana.

Monday, 12.October at 8pm
Petits arrangements avec les morts.
Directed by: Pascale Ferran
1994, 35mm, col., 108 min., (French spoken, English subtitles)

Everything is calm on the sunny Brittany beach. A 40-year-old man attracts the attention. With the help of a child he builds, in silence, a beautiful sand-castle. Another child, attentively looking on,  approaches them and begins a conversation. At the other end of the beach, sitting on a bench, a young man observes the scene. A woman lies on a towel. The three adults are brothers and sister. All three are marked by the death of a loved one…
Pascale Ferran won the Camera d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Films Festival for this moving film.

Wensday, 14.October at 8pm
En Avoir (ou pas)
Directed by: Laetitia Masson
1995, 35mm, col, 90 min. (French spoken, English subtitles)

Laetitia Masson is one of the revelations of the youngest generation in French cinema.
Although the script is conventional, simple and straightforward (a girl, a boy, a hotel and its clients), the way she depicts her generation (Masson is in her twenties) demonstrates an impressive talent.

Wensday, 14.October at 8pm
Parfait Amour
Directed by: Catherine Breillat
1995, 35mm, col., 113 min. (French spoken, English subtitles)

Frédérique, divorced, with two children, in her late thirties, a respectable bourgeoise from Dunkerque, has a nice flat. Christophe, unstable social status, twenty-eight, lives
in a room with his mother, immature. Perfect Love tells the story of this problematic couple. Lucid, strong, beautiful, impressive, violent, and terrifying are just some of the adjectives Cahiers du Cinéma used to describe Breillat’s film.