Daily news update from the 2019 edition of the French Film Festival in Japan
Daily Festival: French Film Festival in Japan - #3 - June 2019

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The festival's third day kicked off under the heavy skies of Yokohama, but was bolstered by the light-hearted humor of the actors and directors who spent the day at the Aeon Cinema in Minato Mirai presenting their films and meeting with Japanese audiences, who always guarantee them a warm welcome.

Sentence of the Day

During a Q&A held after the screening of Invisibles, it was almost exclusively men who volunteered their questions, notably asking Louis-Julien Petit if it wasn't too difficult for him to direct women. At the autograph session that followed, a number of women came up to speak to the director, including one woman who had experienced life on the street, who told him:

"When you are a poor woman in Japan, there are two battles you must fight at the same time: that of being a woman and that of struggling with precarious living conditions."

There is no word in Japanese for "homeless," it is the English word that is used.

Picture of the Day

Keeping a very low profile, Hirokazu Kore-eda, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2018 for Shoplifters, quietly attended the master class given by Claude Lelouch at Waseda University, even though he had been invited to take an active part in the event. Instead, the filmmaker humbly mingled with the group of 387 students in attendance as Claude Lelouch, alone, presented his long career directing career...

Figure of the Day
539

This is the number of meetings held during the Film Market in Tokyo between the 28 participating French sales agents and the 28 Japanese distributors who came to meet with them. In addition to the two days in Tokyo, discussions have continued in Yokohama throughout the festival, particularly as a number of French sales companies were not able to meet with all of the distributors during the market. Let us hope that these meetings will be highly productive: in 2018, 53 French films were released in Japan. The most successful majority-French production shot in French released in Japan in 2018 was Maria by Callas (a film that nonetheless generated the largest part of its attendance figures in 2019), which attracted a total of 84,961 spectators.

3 Questions to

At the helm of Avenue B since 2002—following a stint in New York where she started out producing the films of Raphaël Nadjari—Caroline Bonmarchand has produced around fifteen films for the company, notably those directed by Marc Fitoussi (three features, one short, and two documentaries), Sophie Letourneur, and both of Sébastien Marnier's films, Faultless and School's Out, the latter of which is presented at the festival. Caroline is in Yokohama to accompany Sébastien Marnier, notably in order to meet with the film's Japanese distributor.

For further information, please contact Grégory Alexandre
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