The Angoulême Francophone Film Festival has apparently had a pivotal year for its 16th edition. This event, which has become established over time as “THE back-to-school festival” as Olivier Henrard, deputy director general of the CNC (Centre national du cinema) sums it up, has not been empty.
Despite the scorching temperatures, this meeting of French-speaking cinema, which takes place from August 22 to 27, was full of spectators. And even better than that since it is recording quite spectacular progress. “Last year, specifies the co-founder of the “FFA” Dominique Besnehard, we had recorded 53,000 paying entries. This year, we are going towards 70,000 tickets sold. We have the impression with Marie-France Brière, co-founder of this festival with me, that Angoulême has somewhat become the DNA of France. The tastes of the public in Angoumois resemble those of the French. It has become a kind of “test city” for distributors. The time is also propitious. People have just returned from vacation. They kinda want to see movies again. This is how we realized this year that French cinema had regained the hair of the beast and that it was bulging out, boosting the success of American films of the summer like Barbie and Oppenheimer. ..»
After an opening ceremony rich in events and emotions, carried by the charm and beauty of Laetitia Casta, president of the jury, while unveiling the next film by Fabrice Luchini, a touching “dramedy” by Guillaume Nicloux La Petite, this 16th edition highlighted various French films, including Toni en famille, a comedy directed by the young Nathan Ambrosioni with Camille Cottin in the role of a mother in her forties who raises five children alone in the south of France.
“I fell in love with this original French family comedy that renews the genre by moving away from the somewhat formatted great successes that followed the triumph of What did we do to the Good Lord?” , acknowledges Dominique Besnehard.
Among the eleven films of the official competition which compete for the Valois, equivalent of the palms for the festival, we note the presence of a first formidable film Première affaires, by Victoria Musiedlak, with the young actress of Sicilian and Ukrainian origin Noée Abita , already seen in Passengers of the night, or Slalom. “It’s also our role not to miss such a great discovery,” enthuses Besnehard. The film tells how a young lawyer specializing in financial affairs discovers the joys and disappointments of her job by being propelled against her will into a criminal case in the north of France.
“This year, what seems to me, continues the co-organizer of the festival, is that seven of the eleven films present in competition are made by women. It was not a calculation on our part, but it proves that French cinema is changing, and in particular increasingly offers strong roles to actresses such as Agnès Jaoui (La vie de ma mère), Anouk Grinberg (Bonnard, Pierre and Marthe) or Fanny Ardant (My France to me)»
Highly applauded by the public in Angoumois, the new film by Martin Provost (Séraphine) Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe (release scheduled for January 2024) allows Cécile de France to compose a painter’s muse that is both charming and vibrant.
“A first public screening is always very decisive, admits Cécile de France with a smile. This is not the first time that I have come to Angoulême to promote a film, but I have always found this festival to be full of love and tenderness. The FFA gives the pulse of French cinema before the start of the school year in September. For me, it is really the relationship with the public of Angoulême which is very interesting. All of a sudden, it brings to life the film we shot in our area with the whole team. The spectators of Angoulême are demanding and benevolent. As for the festival, it is more simple, popular, jovial, less elitist and snobbish than many others. In Angoulême, the important thing is the public. And for the cinema to live, it is the public who is right. This is probably why he grows in notoriety year after year…”
Among the highlights of the event, the passage of Fabrice Luchini will obviously not have left any spectators indifferent. “The presence of Luchini in Angoulême reminded us all of very good memories, recognizes Dominique Besnehard. He is a friend of forty years. Its passage created a real shock wave. It is read who had suffered the plasters sixteen years ago during the first edition. When he was a hairdresser in Angoulême, his name was Robert at the time, his real first name. To respond present, defend “La Petite”, the opening film and participate in a “master class” which will have marked the spirits, he changed the work plan of the film by Christophe Honoré which he is currently shooting in Italy. ! That’s what I call friendship…”
In any case, it is in Angoulême that we can best measure the public’s appetite for French films this fall. “This event shows the great diversity of French cinema, concludes Olivier Henrard of the CNC. It has become an unmissable event for professionals and the general public. At the CNC, we help 162 festivals in France, in cinema but also audiovisual or animation. In principle, we wait to have a few years of hindsight on an event before supporting it, but in the case of the FFA, exceptionally, Véronique Cayla had decided to help it from the outset because it had positioned itself on a niche, the Francophonie, which is one of our priorities. Today, producers and distributors need a trial run like this event to show the public and professionals their back-to-school films. Angoulême has been able to settle in at the conjunction of these two roles, an event linked to the Francophonie coupled with a showcase of back-to-school cinema. This is what undoubtedly makes it essential.”
