French Film Festival in January

Six highly acclaimed contemporary and classic French films will be shown at the inaugural Tournées Film Festival from Jan. 14-Feb. 11, 2016. The university was selected by the festival grant committee to host the program during its 20th anniversary celebration.

These films will be shown on the NC State campus and are free and open to the public. Screenings at the Campus Cinema at Witherspoon Student Center will begin at 6:45 p.m. with a brief introduction by faculty from the College of Design and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences beforehand. Tickets and more information are available at go.ncsu.edu/filmfestival.

• Jan. 14: La French / The Connection at the Campus Cinema at Witherspoon Student Center, introduction by Dr. Cecilia Mouat Croxatto, Assistant Professor of Art+Design, College of Design
• Jan. 16: Le roi et l’oiseau / The King and the Mockingbird at the Hunt Library Auditorium
• Jan. 21: Deux jours, une nuit / Two Days, One Night at the Campus Cinema at Witherspoon Student Center, introduction by Dr. David Zonderman, Professor of History, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Jan. 28: Diplomatie / Diplomacy at the Campus Cinema at Witherspoon Student Center, introduction by Dr. Michael Garval, Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Feb. 4: Timbuktu at the Campus Cinema at Witherspoon Student Center, introduction by Dr. Anna Bigelow, Associate Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Feb. 11: Bande de filles / Girlhood at the Campus Cinema at Witherspoon Student Center, introduction by Dr. Mamyrah Prosper, Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar in International Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

The King and the Mockingbird is a family friendly animated classic that will shown at 2 p.m. during French Connections Day on Jan. 16.

L’école, the French immersion preschool in Raleigh, will provide programming for children and families in the Hunt Library auditorium starting at 1 p.m. Other local French organizations will be showcased during the celebration on Saturday to highlight the institution’s and the region’s connections to France.

The Tournées Festival was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée, and the Franco-American Cultural Fund.

About the Films

La French/The Connection is Cédric Jimenez’s companion piece of sorts to William Friedkin’s New York City–based classic The French Connection (1971), A high-energy true-crime tale that tracks the six-year crusade of a law officer to bring down a seemingly untouchable drug kingpin.

Le roi et l’oiseau/The King and the Mockingbird is considered the pinnacle of acclaimed French animator Paul Grimault’s five-decade career. The animated film is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep.” Although set during medieval times in Tachycardia, the realm of the vain and universally despised monarch Charles XVI, The King and the Mockingbird features not only rocket travel but also giant robots. This film is dubbed in English.

Deux jours, une nuit/Two Days, One Night has Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne joining forces with Marion Cotillard, who plays Sandra, an employee at a factory in an industrial Belgian town who is eager to return to work after suffering from depression. Sandra has one weekend to convince her 16 coworkers, each of whom was offered a 1,000€ bonus if they vote to lay her off, to forgo the cash and let her return to work.

Diplomatie/Diplomacy is a brisk, intelligent adaptation of the World War II–set play of the same name. Volker Schlondorff’s Diplomacy features magnificent performances by two lions of French cinema: Niels Arestrup plays Dietrich von Cholitz, the German military governor of occupied Paris and Andre Dussollier stars as the Swedish consul-general Raoul Nordling. Nordling tries to convince the Nazi commander not to carry out Hitler’s orders to bomb Paris.

Timbuktu is Abderrahmane Sissako’s take on the jihadist siege of the Malian city in 2012. A ragtag band of Islamic fundamentalists, hailing from France, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, among other nations, announce their increasingly absurd list of prohibitions—no music, no sports, no socializing—via megaphone to Timbuktu’s denizens, several of whom refuse to obey.

Bande de filles/Girlhood is Céline Sciamma’s third feature, which is set in the impoverished banlieues that ring Paris and are home to many of its French-African denizens. The film focuses on Marieme, a sixteen-year-old who assumes responsibility for her two younger sisters while their mother works the night shift; the teenager must also frequently absorb the wrath of her tyrannical slightly older brother.