Clotilde Courau and Diane Kruger will be guests of honor at the 7th Rendez-Vous with New French Cinema in Rome, to be held from April 5 to 9 this year in the Italian capital before traveling to six cities around the country.
As is the case each year, this festival that presents the new faces of contemporary French cinema will begin in Rome, before traveling to six cities across Italy: Naples, Palermo, Bologna, Turin, Florence, and Milan.
An initiative organized by the French Embassy in Italy, the festival is hosted by the Institut Français in Italy, in collaboration with UniFrance and with the participation of the Académie de France à Rome - Villa Médicis.
The lineup presented in Rome, to be screened at four different venues, will give audiences the chance to explore the diversity of current French filmmaking, with titles ranging from auteur cinema to mainstream productions. As is customary at this event, film screenings will be followed, or preceded by, meetings with audiences, debates, and master classes led by French and Italian artists.
Three Focus Programs on Guest Artists... and something new!
Clotilde Courau and Diane Kruger will each introduce three films: Courau will present Heaven Will Wait, In the Shadow of Women by Philippe Garrel, and Tous les soleils by Philippe Claudel, while Kruger will present Sky by Fabienne Berthaud, Farewell My Queen by Benoit Jacquot, and Disorder by Alice Winocour.
Louis Garrel will host a "Carte Blanche" event during the day of April 7, at which he will present Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello, The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci, and his feature film Two Friends.
And, for the first time, a Focus on Comedies will complete the different aspects of the festival's program. Since 1995, comedies—particularly social comedies, a typically French genre—account for 42% of all admissions to French films in Italy. At the top of the list of best-performing French films in Italy (since UniFrance first began monitoring results for French films abroad) are The Intouchables (2,503,705 admissions), Asterix and Obelix versus Cesar (1,478,600 admissions), and, more recently, Serial (Bad) Weddings (632,631 admissions). Furthermore, a number of French comedies, including What's in a Name and Welcome to the Land of Ch'tis have also led to highly successful remakes in Italy.
It is for this reason that for this 7th edition of the Rendez-Vous with New French Cinema, UniFrance and the Institut Français in Italy have decided to give audiences the opportunity to laugh "French-style" through a presentation of French comedies, with a particularly rich selection this year including In Bed with Victoria, Open at Night, Struggle for Life, and The Fabulous Patars.
A lineup of 30 films
Thirty French productions comprise this year's selection, which covers all genres of French cinema, from mainstream films to more sophisticated auteur works, blockbusters, and independent productions. A sizeable delegation of French actors and directors will travel to Italy to accompany the preview screenings of their films, take part in Q & A sessions, and master classes, as well as meet with actors, directors and a range of professionals from the Italian film and television industry, with the aim of strengthening the historically strong connections between the two countries' movie sectors.
French delegation
A delegation of around a dozen French actors, directors, and producers will be in attendance at the event: Olivier Assayas, Mia Hansen-Løve, Claire Simon, Édouard Baer, Lucas Belvaux, Rebecca Zlotowski, Martin Provost, Thomas Kruithof, Nicolas Silhol, and Antonin Peretjatko.
Film selection
- This Is Our Land by Lucas Belvaux
- The Fabulous Patars by Sophie Reine
- Corniche Kennedy by Dominique Cabrera
- Corporate by Nicolas Silhol
- Dark Diamond by Arthur Harari
- Things to Come by Mia Hansen-Løve
- Struggle for Life by Antonin Peretjatko
- The Eavesdropper by Thomas Kruithof
- Heaven Will Wait by Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar
- The Competition de Claire Simon
- France by Raymond Depardon
- Open at Night by Édouard Baer
- Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas
- Planetarium by Rebecca Zlotowski
- The Midwife by Martin Provost
- In Bed with Victoria by Justine Triet
Professional meetings
On April 5, the Rendez-Vous event will play host to an afternoon dedicated to professional meetings held at the Casa Del Cinema, coordinated by UniFrance and the Institut Français in Italy, to which French and Italian professionals are invited, along with media representatives.
This afternoon will include round table discussions and presentations on the subject of Franco-Italian co-productions, focusing on the following theme: "What is the future for co-productions between France and Italy? A review of the Bilateral Co-Production Agreement, the film development fund, and expected advantages provided by the 'Loi sur le Cinéma'"). Also on the program is the subject of VOD and SVOD platforms and the Italian initiative Cinema2Day (a day in which movie tickets are priced at €2 for all spectators).
Online Film Festival
With the aim of expanding the digital component of the Rendez-Vous with New French Cinema in Rome, UniFrance has renewed its partnership with the platform MyMovies.it. As a special event to be held during the Rendez-Vous festival, this online platform will offer Italian audiences screenings, entirely free of charge, of a selection of films that reflect the diversity of French cinema:
- In Bed with Victoria by Justine Triet, screened the same day at the festival
- I'm All Yours by Baya Kasmi
- This Summer Feeling by Mikhaël Hers
- Parisienne by Danielle Arbid
With thanks to our partner Air France, official airline carrier for the festival.
