The Film at Lincoln Center and UniFrance have announced the lineup for the 2018 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York, which will take place from March 8 to 18. The event will open with a screening of Barbara by Mathieu Amalric.
The Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York, which has been held annually for more than twenty years now, gives audiences a unique opportunity to discover the finest offerings from French cinema of the past year, with a highly curated selection of films put together by the Lincoln Film Society. The films are accompanied by a delegation of actors, directors, and leading figures from the French movie sector.
Cinema as a means of broadening the reach of French culture
The Rendez-Vous events are also, now more than ever, an occasion to promote French culture in all its diversity and its different facets, to facilitate dialogue between artists beyond national borders, and to highlight the influence and vitality of French culture today: through films, of course, with a high proportion of female directors that is unique in the world and an exceptionally large number of debut films included, but also a photographic exhibition and meetings organized between French and American directors, composers, and actors.
The festival will be held at New York's Lincoln Center from March 8 to 18.
The films
The 2018 slate, which comprises 24 films making their New York, United States, or North American premieres, demonstrates that the French cinema landscape is as fertile as ever and that the voices issuing from it have never been more diverse.
These films, most of which have already been shown at the major international film festivals, will be screened in the presence of some of the leading lights of contemporary French filmmaking, including Laurent Cantet, Olivier Assayas, Mathieu Amalric, Raymond Depardon, Claudine Nougaret, Emmanuel Finkiel, Tonie Marshall, Xavier Beauvois, Bruno Dumont, Jean Paul Civeyrac, Gilles Bourdos, and Eugène Green, as well as promising emerging talents, such as Xavier Legrand, Marine Francen, Vincent Macaigne, Léonor Serraille, and Rachid Hami.
Actresses Jeanne Balibar and Mélanie Thierry will also be in attendance, along with around ten producers and representatives from French sales companies.
The complete list of delegation members can be found on the Rendez-Vous 2018 page.
Lineup
- Montparnasse Bienvenüe by Léonor Serraille
- The Sower by Marine Francen
- See You Up There by Albert Dupontel
- Before Summer Ends by Maryam Goormaghtigh
- Jeannette: the Childhood of Joan of Arc by Bruno Dumont
- C'est la vie! by Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache
- Memoir of War by Emmanuel Finkiel
- Endangered Species by Gilles Bourdos
- Custody by Xavier Legrand
- A Paris Education by Jean Paul Civeyrac
- Ava by Léa Mysius
- Comfort and Consolation by Vincent Macaigne
- Just to Be Sure by Carine Tardieu
- The Workshop by Laurent Cantet
- Tomorrow and Thereafter by Noémie Lvovsky
- The Guardians by Xavier Beauvois
- Waiting for the Barbarians by Eugène Green
- Orchestra Class by Rachid Hami
- The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Nobuhiro Suwa
- Barbara by Mathieu Amalric
- 12 Days by Raymond Depardon
- July Tales by Guillaume Brac
- Number One by Tonie Marshall
- Bloody Milk by Hubert Charuel
Sidebar events
- A number of master classes will be organized, one of which focuses on the work of composer Julie Roué, who wrote the original music for Montparnasse Bienvenüe, to be held with students from the NYU, in partnership with Sacem. The Fordham University will welcome three directors, Marine Francen, Xavier Legrand, and Laurent Cantet, who will meet with students and give three successive master classes. Another master class will be led by Jean Paul Civeyrac for students from the New York School of Visual Arts.
- As part of a partnership with HBO, two free talks will be held on the themes of "Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" (with the participation of Tonie Marshall and Marine Francen) and "First Films" (with the participation of Marine Francen and Xavier Legrand, as well as the young American filmmakers Jeremiah Zagar, Reinaldo Green, Amy Lo, and Reinaldo Marcus Green).
- The Metrograph Theater will be making the most of the presence of French talents in New York to organize three special evening events in honor of Mathieu Amalric, Jeanne Balibar, and Vincent Macaigne.
- With a focus on the school environment, three screenings of Orchestra Class will be held for pupils at New York schools in the presence of director Rachid Hami.
- An exhibition of portraits of French film directors, actors, and actresses photographed by Jean-Baptiste Le Mercier for UniFrance will be presented at Lincoln Center's Furnam Gallery during the festival.
- This year for the first time, French sales companies will be invited on stage to present their film slates to American distributors at a special event held at the Lincoln Center auditorium, followed by a brunch attended by industry professionals and journalists.
- Following UniFrance's initiative, the festival will feature a special "Salut les Jeunes!" day on March 12, with screenings of films handpicked from the lineup that highlight young people's experiences today (The Workshop, A Paris Education, and Montparnasse Bienvenüe). A special ticket price is available for attendees under 40. In conjunction, the festival is holding a film review competition sponsored by Frenchly, offering a prize of a round-trip flight to Paris.
- Olivier Assayas, who will be attending the SXSW festival in Texas (to take part in a conversation with Richard Linklater and a retrospective of his work), will also make the trip to New York to accompany the commercial release of Cold Water.
