PRESS RELEASES – PAGE 12

SPOTLIGHT ON FRANCE
Wednesday, September 5, 2001

This is an especially strong year for films from France. French cinema goes from strength to strength and we are pleased to be including film in this year’s Spotlight on France from Grand Masters like Jacques Rivette, whose VA SAVOIR is receiving its Canadian Premiere, and newcomers like Yves Caumon, director of BOYHOOD LOVES and Bertrand Bonello, whose THE PORNOGRAPHER stars French icon Jean-Pierre Léaud. We are also pleased to welcome back controversial new films from French bad girl Catherine Breillat (FAT GIRL) and perennial troublemaker Michael Haneke, whose Isabelle Huppert-starring THE PIANO TEACHER took three awards at this year’s Cannes festival. (Read more)

The spirit of Paris that we launched the Festival with in AMÉLIE continues throughout the Spotlight on France, and even into the other series this year, yielding a well-rounded portrait of the City of Lights. The other side of the tracks is explored in Nicolas Klotz’s PARIAH, a gritty and graphic depiction of lives losing their last fingerhold on mainstream society’s bottom rung. In Manoel de Oliveira’s masterful I’M GOING HOME, Michel Piccoli gives a staggering performance as a Parisian theatre actor keeping up his daily routine after the tragic death of his wife. Nils Tavernier’s ETOILES, THE PARIS OPERA BALLET COMPANY shows us how the stars of Paris ballet – the "children of Nureyev" are not born but created. And even Tsai Ming-Liang moves half of his action to Paris in the exquisite WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?

Other films in the Spotlight on France are: BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, Christophe Gans’ relentlessly flashy, big-budget adventure that offers a head-spinning mix of pop-culture genres; DON’T MAKE TROUBLE – EVERYDAY RACISM, a thought-provoking omnibus collection wherein 12 of France’s best-known directors explore the absurdity and injustice of racism; NIGHT SHIFT, Philippe Le Guay’s gripping psychological drama played out between two workers in the grim environs of a provincial factory; Laurent Cantet’s highly anticipated TIME OUT, about one working man’s attempt to craft an alternative life for himself after being laid off; VIFF favourite François Ozon’s UNDER THE SAND, which features Charlotte Rampling as a woman unable to cope with the sudden disappearance of her husband; and Tony Gatlif’s latest musical exploration of Rom culture, VENGO.

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