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City of Lights/City of Angels French Film Festival
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With a host of new sponsors, the sixth annual City of Lights/City of Angels Film Festival signaled a maturation that hopefully will continue for many years ahead. 2001 was a banner year for the French film industry. It captured 42% of the overall market in their home country, despite an overwhelming saturation of American studio films. The energy of that renaissance crossed the Atlantic with the nine directors invited to screen at this year's Festival once again hosted at the DGA.
Bertrand Tavernier's WWII story of French filmmakers working under Nazi occupation, Safe Conduct (Laissez-passer), kicked things off. Tavernier credited both a French and an American director as inspiration for Safe Conduct's style and intent.
"The inspiration came from Jean Renoir and Robert Altman," Tavernier said. "Renoir always captured the complexity of the period and the human beings in films with so many characters, like Grande Illusion and Rules of the Game. In Altman's films, there's this enormous invention where you have 10 people in the shot talking, discussing, and the action always comes from the people themselves, not the props or set design."
Tavernier was introduced by the MPAA's Jack Valenti as "one of the greatest French storytellers who's ever lived." Valenti and Tavernier have been at opposite sides of the table in past Franco-American negotiations, and joked about their differences in the opening-night introductions.
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Kicking off opening night on behalf of the DGA, was John Frankenheimer, who revealed a personal friendship with Tavernier that was formed while living in Paris in the 1960s. "Bertrand was a young film critic with a passion for American films, when I first met him," Frankenheimer said. "Over the course of a series of interviews he did on me and my films, we became great friends."
Bernard Miyet, who succeeded Jean-Loup Tournier as the head of SACEM, a co-sponsor of the City of Lights Festival since its origin, talked briefly of misconceptions about the booming French film industry. "We have tremendous artists who are influenced by American movies but are very true to their own French culture," Miyet said.
That was borne out by the fact that many of this year's films were huge hits in France, most notably Coline Serreau's Chaos and Christian Carion's The Girl From Paris. Tavernier's opening-night drama was followed on Tuesday night by Patrick Alessandrin's Weekend Break (15 Aout). Wednesday showcased one of France's most daring and enduring filmmakers, Claude Miller and his dark thriller, Betty Fisher Et Autres Histoires.
On subsequent evenings, first-time films were highlighted. Eugene Green, a poet, playwright and stage director, brought his story of entangled romance in Night After Night (Toutes le nuits). Christian Carion's The Girl From Paris offered the best of Old and New School French acting.
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Closing night featured a screening of Coline Serreau's Chaos. Serreau is also the president of L'ARP, the French guild representing artists who write, direct and produce. Just before Chaos screened, Serreau explained that L'ARP had a guarantee from all the candidates in the French presidential campaign to insert a written clause into the constitution protecting French cultural rights irrespective of international economic treaties. "The cinema industry belongs to the people," Serreau said. "The funds to support it literally come from a percentage of every ticket sold in a French theater."
Director Euzhan Palcy, who led the Q&A with Serreau, is also a big proponent of the French system, which grants the director the right of authorship via law. "Would you ever consider making movies outside of France?" Palcy asked Serreau in response to an audience member's query.
"Our system is quite well organized to protect the filmmaker, and it would be very difficult for me to work without the author's right, without final cut," Serreau said. In France, directors and producers must jointly agree on the final cut. The City of Lights audience burst into sustained applause, ringing out the week in much the same way the French film industry ushered out 2001 — with prideful enthusiasm in their filmmakers as artists on the global cinematic canvas.
–David Geffner
More photos from the City of Lights/City of Angels Film Festival
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