UTSA hosts inaugural French Film Festival March 4-9

>> View the UTSA French Film Festival schedule on Facebook.
>> View a promotional video with film posters and the schedule on YouTube.

By Rebecca Luther
Communications Coordinator, Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

(Feb. 24, 2011)--The UTSA Department of Modern Languages and Literatures will host the inaugural UTSA French Film Festival March 4, 5, 6 and 9 on the UTSA Main Campus. The festival and an opening reception are free and open to the public.

>> The opening film, "Le Chant des mariees" (The Wedding Song), will be screened at 6:30 p.m., Friday, March 4 in the Main Building Auditorium (0.106). The screening will be preceded by a 5 p.m. reception in the lobby.

Organized by UTSA faculty members Marie-Therese Ellis-House and Catherine Picot-Priewe, the festival is funded by a grant from the Tournees Festival. The festival awards more than $200,000 in grants annually to bring contemporary French cinema to American college and university campuses, and to encourage schools to begin their own self-sustaining French film festivals.

"Not everyone has the resources to be able to study abroad," said Ellis-House. "With this film festival, we can give our students and others in San Antonio exposure to French culture here where they live. The films reflect a variety of different themes and approaches in French society and cinema."

The UTSA French Film Festival is part of the San Antonio French Cultures Festival; events are planned throughout March.

Additional support for the film festival has been provided by James Lifschutz, honorary consul general of France in San Antonio; Julius Gribou, UTSA executive vice provost; UTSA French Club; UTSA Libraries; and the UTSA Department of English.

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UTSA French Film Festival

LE CHANT DES MARIEES / THE WEDDING SONG (directed by Karin Albou, 2007)
Set in Nazi-occupied Tunis in 1942, "The Wedding Song" focuses on the friendship between teenagers Nour, a devout Muslim engaged to a Nazi informer, and Myriam, a secular Jew forced into an arranged marriage.

35 RHUMS / 35 SHOTS OF RUM (directed by Claire Denis, 2008)
The close relationship between a widowed father and his university-student daughter is threatened by the father's ex-girlfriend and the daughter's admirer.

LA BELLE PERSONNE / THE BEAUTIFUL PERSON (directed by Christophe Honore, 2008)
Sixteen-year-old Junie is the new girl in town and becomes the crush object of her classmates and Italian teacher alike.

LA FILLE DU RER / THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (directed by Andre Techine, 2008)
This drama, inspired by a true story, centers on a young woman, Jeanne, who claims she is the target of an anti-Semitic attack and the subsequent media sensation it creates.

WELCOME (directed by Philippe Lioret, 2008)
Bilal, a teenage Iraqi Kurd living in Northern France, vows to swim across the English Channel to join his girlfriend in London and enlists the help of a recently divorced swimming coach.