15th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in New York

This event will feature a selection of recent French films presented as U.S. premieres at the Walter Reade Theater and the IFC Center in Manhattan, and at the BAM in Brooklyn.

The following films will be showcased at the event:
Farewell by Christian Carion (festival opener), In the Beginning by Xavier Giannoli, The Army of Crime by Robert Guédiguian, The French Kissers by Riad Sattouf, Bel âge by Laurent Perreau, The Thorn in the Heart by Michel Gondry, The Wolberg Family by Axelle Ropert, The Hedgehog by Mona Achache, Eight Times Up by Xabi Molia, I'm Glad that My Mother Is Alive by Claude & Nathan Miller, Mademoiselle Chambon by Stéphane Brizé, Making Plans for Lena by Christophe Honoré, OSS 117: Lost in Rio by Michel Hazanavicius, Rapt by Lucas Belvaux, The Refuge by François Ozon (closing film), Regrets by Cédric Kahn, King of Escape by Alain Guiraudie, and Welcome by Philippe Lioret.

Yvan Attal, Guillaume Canet, Jean Dujardin, Julie Gayet, Virginie Ledoyen, Chiara Mastroianni, Vincent Lindon, and the majority of directors of the films selected will be in attendance.

Special events will be organized during this 15th Rendez-Vous event:
➢    A Conversation with Michel Gondry and A Conversation with Vincent Lindon will give festival goers the chance to dialogue directly with the innovative director of The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the acclaimed actor from Mademoiselle Chambon and Welcome.
➢    New Films by the Lumière Brothers: a program of restored works by the inventors of cinema featuring their experiments with color and 3-D presented by Cannes Film Festival Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux.
➢    The FIAF (French Institute) will host a Special evening with Yvan Attal in which the actor-director will present two short films he has directed: I Got a Woman and his segment from the collective film New York, I Love You.
➢    La FIAF will also welcome Christophe Honoré and Chiara Mastrioanni for a special screening of Love Songs. Christophe Honoré is also signed up to take part in a master class with films students from NYU.
➢    Cédric Kahn and Yvan Attal will present a screening of Regrets to students at Columbia University.
➢    A special screening of Jules Dassin's long-unseen film Where the Hot Wind Blows.
➢    A program of eight short films.

Eight films showcased at the festival have already been acquired by American distributors. The Rendez-Vous event will boost the exposure of the remaining films to American industry professionals, increasing their chances of landing distribution deals. Ten French sales agents will accompany the artistic delegation, who will take advantage of their stay in New York to take part in interviews with the national media.

Registering around 24 million spectators for French films last year, the United States leads foreign markets by a wide margin. The unprecedented success of Taken (20 million admissions all up) drove attendance figures to French fare up by 50% compared to 2008. Other star performers of the year were Coco Before Chanel (870,000 admissions), The Class (540,000 admissions), and Summer Hours (240,000 admissions). The number of French-language films released in the United States nonetheless dropped back slightly (19 titles in 2009 against 23 in 2008), resulting in a decrease in their attendance figures.
However, certain films were released exclusively on VoD, or simultaneously in theaters and VoD, allowing the possibility to reach wide audiences.