A still image from "Chien Bleu" ("Blue Dog"), one of the short films screening at the 2022 French Film Festival
If the pandemic hadn't erased the past two years, this would've been the 30th Annual Virginia Commonwealth University/University of Richmond French Film Festival. But it's the 28th, back at Carytown's Byrd Theatre March 24-27.
An image in Richmond of what would’ve been for 2020 included the posters and programs of the festival. The materials featured the face of a frequent guest, the actress, director and writer Josiane Balasko. Her expression appeared even more wistful as the dates came and went while the event’s potential audiences remained sequestered.
Thus, we’ve arrived two years later to the 28th French Film Festival, loaded with magnificent cinematic experiences you won't be able to get elsewhere because these films aren't likely to receive distribution on this side of water.
And the appropriately ecstatic image for this 28th shows Melanie Thierry in a still from Jean-Marie and Arnaud Larrieu’s romantic mystery-comedy, sometimes musical and oh-so French “Tralala.”
And, yes, Josiane Balasko is in the movie.
The festival’s co-founders, spouses Peter Kirkpatrick, an associate professor of French at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Françoise Ravaux-Kirkpatrick, a professor of French and film studies at the University of Richmond, began the event in 1993. Screening audiences soon outgrew two VCU auditoriums and necessitated a larger house, the Byrd, and the event grew to include off-site master classes. That part isn't happening this year, and there'll be no livestreaming to talk about cinema.
"We decided against trying that; first, we think people are Zoomed out, and second, given the layers of complications of making the festival happen at all, we didn't want any delays for showtimes. We want people to have as good a screening as possible given the circumstances," Kirkpatrick says.
Technology is the handmaiden of film and its projection. And the relationship is at times fraught. The Kirkpatricks praise the work of award-winning projectionist Alain Surmulet (National Federation of French Cinemas & High Commission for Cinema Images and Sound).
"He just won an award for his work at Cannes," Kirkpatrick notes. "He got off the plane, and we found the digital projector in pieces on the floor in the booth. But he's the person you want in those situations. And so he worked overnight to put it all back together, calibrate everything. And whoa, what a difference."
Given the recent difficulties of overseas travel, the festival is a way to get out of town without leaving, and the cost of a plane ticket is far more than a festival pass. (Tickets for individual films are $15 and on sale at the Byrd Theatre a half hour before each show, if available). And all the films include English subtitles. Another change this year: No concessions will be sold at the theater, and masks are required at all times.
The festival, with its variety of films, provides a snapshot of conditions in the wider world through a French lens. Perhaps more acute to the moment than it might've been a year ago, for example, is Florence Miailhe's animated feature, "La Traversée" ("The Crossing"), concerning a family fleeing a ruined village and two youngsters lost on the road to exile.
"This is quite timely, indeed, and though Florence lives in France, she's Ukrainian," observes Kirkpatrick. Ravaux-Kirkpatrick adds, "And the situation reflects even more because her own grandmother has had to flee from Odessa. So did her mother, but during World War II."
Likewise, the dramatic film by Emmanuel Hamon "Exfiltrés" ("Escape From Raqqa"), which takes up the issue of the ongoing conflict in Syria.
The natural environment is part of the program as well, from youths concerned about climate change and their journey of discovery, led by primatologist Jane Goodall, in "Animal," to a father and son attempting to save an endangered bird species in "Donne-mois des Ailes" ("Spread Your Wings").
Another unusual film, in partnership with the Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival, is the screening of Jack Kohler's "Something Inside Is Broken," a rock opera featuring Indigenous people. The story concerns the Nisenan tribe of Northern California, which suffered brutal treatment during the 1840s Gold Rush. Grim as this subject is, there's a mixture of music and some comic relief. Kohler, actor and singer Danny DeLeon, singer Koli Kohler, and actress Carly Kohler are presenting the film, and following the Q&A, Koli Kohler and Danny DeLeon will perform live onstage.
"This will be a wholly different experience," Kirkpatrick says. "The talent of those involved is immense, and the story told from the Native American experience is not the way we usually hear about what happened."
Choosing the festival lineup means balancing between the contemporary and the historic, curating among wrenching drama, lush romance, delightful comedies and effervescent musicals.
And greater variety and surprise are offered by the popular early morning Saturday and Sunday short film programs. Kirkpatrick observes, "This is one of the big parts of the festival people have missed in during the past two years. They not only offer a variety — comedy, drama, fantasy — but they have a pedagogical component." Seven DVDs are available of past shorts programs, and teachers use them as part of language instruction.
Also of note is a documentary pertaining to the late director and prior festival guest Claude Pinoteau, "For the Love of Cinema." Pinoteau went from child actor to intern, working with French new wave greats and then making his own films. "He was going to come the year he passed away [2012]," Kirkpatrick recalls, "and he provided a big influence on the way we did things at the festival. He was an institution within French cinema and a downright wonderful human being."
What might’ve seemed an open and somewhat superficial question, “What does it mean to be a filmmaker today?” was placed before a number of the festival directors by Steve Moreau for vignettes that’ll show before each feature. The simple-sounding query, well, isn't, especially now when images are pumped into our lives every day, all day, of narrative, news and nonsense.
Moreau reflects on the event’s website, “Today, everyone makes images. But making images does not mean making a movie. ... Behind each film, one must (or should) feel the presence of a filmmaker. A man or a woman who defends and expresses his or her ideas against all odds and shares them with us.”
Bonne projection à toi! (Have a good screening, y’all!) View the complete festival schedule here.
