Organization

Coup de Foudre - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

June 1, 2012

Shot in 1983 with two formidable actresses in the leading roles and a female director, Coup de foudre is a rare French film with a distinctly feminine perspective. This is important because the film is about an intimate, yet platonic, relationship between two women, a theme which is seldom explored as thoroughly and candidly in French...

Venus Beaute (Institut) - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

June 15, 2012

The daughter of the American actor William Marshall and Micheline Presle, director Tonie Marshall started acting in 1972 and directing in 1990. In just ten years, she reached the top of the French film industry with a Cesar of Best Director for Venus beaute (Institut). Co-written with a top writer, Jacques Audiard, this film is a surprising mix...

Une Vieille Maitresse - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

June 29, 2012

Actor, director, and writer Catherine Breillat is no stranger to controversy. The director who shocked audiences with her overt portrayal of female sexuality and outrageously lurid sex scenes, veered away and instead made Une Vieille Maitresse (The Last Mistress), a restrained period drama in the classical french tradition. It is one of her...

Partir - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

July 13, 2012

Born in 1956, Catherine Corsini started directing short stories for a dozen years, and in 2001, she wrote and directed La Repetition (Replay) with Emmanuelle Beart and was nominated for a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. This evening's feature, Partir (Leaving), is a work of Corsini's from 2009 starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi...

Nathalie Granger - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

May 18, 2012

Marguerite Duras' Nathalie Granger is a 1972 landmark of contemporary cinema. Duras' fourth feature after the world-acclaimed Hiroshima mon Amour--which she wrote but did not direct--Nathalie Granger stars Jeanne Moreau, Lucia Bose, and a young Gerard Depardieu. It is the elusive story about the world of women in which dull domestic ritual...

A Prophet by Jacques Audiard - French Movie Night

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

January 20, 2012

Plot Summary: Un prophète is a French thriller film first released in 2009, directed by Jacques Audiard. The film stars Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Hichem Yacoubi and Reda Kateb. It has also been released under the title: A Prophet. Our overall rating for this film is: Sensational! 2009 Academy Award Nominee....

L'Homme qui aimait les Femmes - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

December 16, 2011

L'Homme qui aimait les Femmes , or The Man Who Loved Women, is a Truffaut cult classic. Truffaut's funniest film in years never won an award, but was nominated for four Cesar awards at Cannes 1977. Charles Denner is at his peak together with Brigitte Fossey and Nelly Borgeaud.

At the funeral of Bertrand Morane, Genevieve observes the...

La Grande Seduction - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

December 2, 2011

La Grande Seduction, or Seducing Dr. Lewis, is a film by Jean-Francois Pouliot from Quebec. This superb comedy and romance a la Balzac won fifteen awards and fifteen nomiations in 2003 and 2004 including the Best Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival. In a tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere, the locals have stood in line for eight...

Breathless (1960) - French Film

Presented by French Film Club of Palo Alto at All Saints Episcopal Church

September 27, 2011

Michel Poiccard is a small-time crook who is on the run after having shot dead a policeman. Hoping to recover some money he is owed by some shady associates of his, Michel returns to Paris. Here, he meets up with Patricia, a young student and aspiring journalist with whom he had enjoyed a brief affair in Nice.

Michel dupes Patricia...