French Film Festival UK 2024, the only francophone film event in the UK, is ready to return to screens for its 32nd edition, maintaining its commitment to offering a broad selection of exciting and challenging films. This year it partners with MUBI giving an opportunity to view films from several festival icons including several Scottish venues.
With more than 200 screenings of 60 French-language films across more than 25 different locations, this edition of the French Film Festival UK includes some of the most anticipated titles of the year, many showing exclusively as UK premieres and featuring an array of directorial talents including the debut of female directors Laetitia Dosch and Charlotte Schiøler.
In attendance at this year’s festival will be Mathieu Amalric with Filmlovers!, actor/director Charlotte Schiøler who will introduce her latest film Mousey and César award winner Yolande Zauberman for The Belle from Gaza.
Elsewhere, Emmanuel Mouret will appear in person for a Q&A about his latest take on modern romance Three Friends while Wilfried Méance will present his comedy of sexual manners Maybe More and documentary legend Claire Simon will be in conversation with fellow filmmaker Sophie Fiennes for her return to the playground in Elementary.
Savages, that isClaude Barras’s follow up to modern classic My Life As a Courgette and Julie Keeps Quiet, Belgium’s submission for the best foreign language film Academy Award, make for more festival highlights.
Other previews range from Louise Courvoisier’s debut feature Holy Cow from Glasgow-based distributors Conic, and, ahead of its French and UK release early next year, The Marching Band. Add to these is Audrey Diwan’s re-imagining of the cult erotic hit Emmanuelle, with her anticipated follow up to Venice Golden Lion winner Happening.
Diwan also has a writing credit on Gilles Lelouche’s Palm D’or nominee Beating Hearts, starring Adèle Exarchopoulos, which heads up the Festival’s DISCOVERY strand with Jessica Palud’s interrogation of the film industry in Being Maria. A Bernadette Chirac biopic The President’s Wife stars Catherine Deneuve and Dog on Trial is the debut feature from actor turned director Laetitia Dosch.
In the PANORAMA strand highlights include The Story of Souleymane and Marcello Mio. In the CLASSICS strand, tribute is paid to two icons who recently passed, with Anouk Aimee’s classic A Man and A Woman,and Alain Delon’s iconic The Swimming Pool. Marking a centenary since the birth of auteur Claude Sautet, is a screening of his César & Rosalie.
Co-founder and director Richard Mowe said “…. Book in for some of the year’s most amazing cinema experiences all with a French accent, and, bien sûr, English subtitles.”
The Festival is supported by Institut Français Royaume-Uni; Institut français Écosse; Alliance française Glasgow; Screen Scotland; Film Hub Scotland; BFI FAN; Unifrance; Air France; TotalEnergies; Wallonie-Bruxelles; Franco-Scottish Society; Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom (Cultural Affairs); Eurostar and Eastern Western Motor Group.
Scottish venues are: Ayr Film Society; Bo’ness Hippodrome; The Barn, Banchory; Robert Burns Centre Dumfries; Colintraive Community Centre; Glasgow Film Theatre; Institut français d’Ecosse, Dominion Cinema and McDonald Road Library Edinburgh; Macrobert Art Centre Stirling; Fraser Centre Tranent; Seil Island Community Cinema and Aberdeen Cineworld
Full details at 2024 Programme | French Film Festival UK
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 