French Cinema Now October 8, 2008

The San Francisco Film Society presents French Cinema Now (October 8–12, Landmark’s Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore Street at Clay), an inaugural festival dedicated to celebrating the best in contemporary French cinema. The latest expansion in the Film Society’s year-round programming, this new addition to the fall schedule focuses on bringing the most significant new work from one of the world’s most renown filmmaking countries to discerning Bay Area audiences.

Covering a broad spectrum of subject matter and genres, the films in this series—ranging from a rowdy rural comedy to an intricate equine nonfiction feature to a tense science-fiction thriller—build a comprehensive picture of the current moment in French cinema. A brief retrospective of the career of celebrated auteur Arnaud Desplechin and a New Wave classic round out the series with some important historical perspective. This thematically rich programming is bookended by what are arguably the two most important French films of 2008: Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale (with the filmmaker in attendance) and the winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Laurent Cantet’s The Class.

For more information and to purchase tickets please visit www.sffs.org.

Actresses – A tour de force for director/cowriter/star Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Actresses is a pointed and poignant portrait of a middle-aged woman who is artistically successful but generally unhappy. (Playing Oct 9, 9:15pm; Oct 12, 3:45pm)

Alibi – In this crisply paced and witty Agatha Christie adaptation, a poolside murder reveals an intricate web of sexual intrigue and tangled romantic jilting. (Playing Oct 10, 6:45pm; Oct 11, 9:15pm)

A Christmas Tale – Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale—with Catherine Deneuve as the matriarch of a dysfunctional family and Mathieu Amalric as her estranged son—is a sprawling, wickedly funny family drama. (Playing Oct 8, 6:30pm)

The Class – Unanimously voted the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Laurent Cantet’s The Class plunges viewers into a lively classroom set in the tough, multiethnic Paris neighborhood. (Playing Oct 12, 6:15pm)

Eden Log – Refreshingly complex, vividly unsettling, and artfully shot, Franck Vestiel’s sci-fi feature offers ample chills and much food for thought. (Playing Oct 11, 11:59pm)

Lads and Jockeys – Benjamin Marquet’s feature-length documentary takes us into the world where young teens adopt a grueling training regimen in hopes of landing an elusive career: riding at professional horse races. (Playing Oct 10, 9:15pm; Oct 11, 4:15pm)

The Life of the Dead – In his first film, little-seen in the U.S., Arnaud Desplechin begins his revelatory investigation into the web of relationships that comprise the modern family. (Playing Oct 10, 5:15pm)

My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument – Arnaud Desplechin perfectly captures the heady milieu of graduate school in this keenly funny and exceedingly intelligent film about people on the edge of adulthood but scared to death of the potential abysses lying below. (Playing Oct 11, 12:30pm)

Six in Paris – In the delightful Six in Paris, a sextet of French New Wave directors write and direct stories structured around a particular Parisian neighborhood’s topography. (Playing Oct 11, 7:00pm; Oct 12, 9:30pm)

Welcome to the Sticks – This little charmer—a warm and uproarious send-up of regional prejudices and an embrace of inclusiveness—came out of nowhere this year to become the most successful French film of all time. (Playing Oct 9, 6:45pm; Oct 12, 1:15pm)

For more information and to purchase tickets please visit www.sffs.org.

Official Website: http://www.sffs.org/