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10TH
FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL IN CUBA
From Microcosmos to Paris, je t’aime
BY
MIREYA CASTAÑEDA —Granma International staff
writer—
CHRISTOPHE Barratier has become an international
director since his debut film, Les Choristes,
which he premiered in Havana just three weeks after
its first showing in Paris. This respect was shown
because of Barratier’s knowledge of the Cuban people’s
passion for the cinema and particularly French film,
given that since the French group "Cinemania"
started the French Film Festival to the current day,
on its 10th anniversary, it is only second in
importance to the Latin American Film Festival.
This year the Festival – sponsored by ICAIC, the
Cinemateca de Cuba, the cultural services of the
French embassy and the Alianza Francesa – is
screening 19 feature films, all made between 2004
and 2006, and two programs of short films, one for
children (eight films) and another for adults (four).
The novelty is that this time the films can be seen
in all the Cuban provinces, not just in the capital
and selected cities. In total, 40 movie theaters.
As usual, many of the films are presented (in
Havana) by their directors, scriptwriter or actors
and actresses. And so, in this year of
recapitulation, we should remember that key figures
from the French industry have traveled to Cuba,
including as Pierre Richard, Agnes Jaoui, Jacques
Perrin, Gerard Junot, Claude Zidi, and Claude
Brasseur.
Precisely for this reason, in an informal meeting
with the delegation, organized by the Alianza
Francesa, Granma International spoke with
Barratier about this 10th anniversary and what it
means for him.
CB: It’s difficult to describe for me. When I
arrived in Cuba for the first time in 1998 to show
the film Microcosmos it was like a blow to
the heart in terms of the audience, and from that
moment I decided to work to come back. The Cuban
public touched me deeply. It’s a love story. I don’t
like to take a vacation but prefer to do things and
the thing I do is "cinema." For me, it’s a passion.
The French Film Festival in Cuba is the largest in
the world in terms of the public. It’s quite
extraordinary and means a lot.
Over the last 10 years, we’ve screened more than
120 films, and more than 100 people have visited
Cuba. I can recall magical things. The premiere of
Microcosmos, and of course my own film
Les Choristes, was the meeting of my two
universes. I remember the encounter with Agnes Jaoui,
the madness at the 23 y 12 Cinema when we showed
Asterix et Obelix. I like very much that the Cuban
people are the same, with the same passion, for
films that are not so commercial and have more to do
with the filmmaker, intimate, there is no difference.
In France, it is totally different.
GI: Are you working on a new film?
CB: I am. I’m working on a new film that we’re
going to start shooting in July. It’s a comedy about
the Popular Front in 1936, about three characters,
unemployed workers. Then comes this incredible
movement from history, this dream that failed
because of the Second World War. It’s very funny and
it’s set in a popular neighborhood in Paris.
The 10th festival kicked off with a screening at
the Chaplin cinema of the feature film París, je
t’aime in which a pleiad of outstanding French
and foreign filmmakers and actors offer their
individual visions of the so-called City of Light.
The original idea is by French filmmaker Tristan
Carné, who explained for Granma International
readers how this project came about.
TC: This idea was born quite simply, as many
ideas are. More than eight years ago, I was making a
short film and as I walked around Paris with my
girlfriend I had the idea of making a film about the
city without knowing exactly how to go about it. As
there are 20 arrondissements in Paris, I
thought about making short films about these 20
neighborhoods. A week later, I imagined uniting them
around a central theme, and I thought the best way
to do it would be to bring them together around love.
Paris is a romantic city for the world. So, there
are 20 arrondissements with 20 love stories
by 20 different directors.
GI: How did you select the directors?
TC: I wrote the project and I sent it to 20
directors that we liked. The list has changed a lot
over the last eight years, they are 20 people who
work hard. It’s a very difficult film to make
because we’re talking about 20 directors and an
important casting of actors. The game was that the
first to accept would be able to choose the
neighborhood that he/she wanted and the last one had
no option. The rules of the film: everybody had to
write their own script and make their own film, in
six minutes, about the subject of love in the
neighborhood they had chosen and that had to be
identified, without saying where it was. Everyone
had their own style. Each director showed their own
Paris.
The film’s directors include Gerard Depardieu,
Ethan and Joel Cohen, Alfonso Cuarón, Walter Salles
and Gus Van Sant, and those starring include Barbet
Schroeder, Miranda Richardson, Leonor Watling,
Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Fanny
Ardant, Elijah Word, Natalie Portman, Ben Gazzara,
and Geena Rowlands.
Accompanying their films are Steve Suissa (Le
Grand Rôle, nominated at the Gran Prix Festival
in París)), scriptwriter Julián Rappeneau (36
Quai des Orfevres, nominated for eight Cesar
awards), Philippe Faucon (La Trahison),
Laurent Cantet (Vers le Sud, the
CinemAvvenire Award at the Venice Film Festival),
and Kim Chapiron (Sheitan).
The 19 feature films to have arrived in Cuba for
2007 cover a wide variety of subjects and genres -
police dramas, comedies, dramas, autor movies
– and styles.
Highlighted are Selon Charlie (official
selection at Cannes 2006) by Nicole Garcia; Le
Petit Lieutenant by Xavier Beauvois, with
Natalie Baye; Cause Toujours! by Jeanne
Labrune, with Victoria Abril and Vipère au poing
(2004), the final film of the very well-known
Philippe de Broca.
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