On Monday, April 19, the 14th City of Lights, City of Angels (COL-COA) Film Festival began its annual celebration of French films with an opening night gala at DGA headquarters in Los Angeles.
From its opening night through its close on April 25, this year's COL-COA presented 32 features, 20 shorts, and several North American and international premieres. In its Focus on a Filmmaker event, the festival honored director Claude Miller (The Little Thief, The Accompanist) featuring the West Coast premiere of his latest film Je suis heureux que ma mère soit vivante (I'm Glad that My Mother Is Alive) and a conversation with the director as part of the COL-COA Happy Hour Talks, a series of industry discussions followed by wine and cheese receptions. The festival also featured a historic screening of the restored Jean-Luc Godard classic Pierrot Le Fou.
COL-COA is the flagship program of the Franco-American Cultural Fund (FACF) - a unique collaborative effort of the DGA, the Motion Picture Association, Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique (SACEM), and the Writers Guild of America, west. All COL-COA screenings are free to DGA members.
(Photos by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images, Valerie Macon, Jeremy Kagan.)