Tag Archives: Directors Guild Theater

COLCOA — AMALRIC’S BARBARA

For his seventh feature as a director, Mathieu Amalric investigates the life of French singer BARBARA through the prism of an actress (Jeanne Balibar, as Brigitte) portraying the singer for a film directed by Yves Sand (Amalric).

This acclaimed meta-narrative—for which Balibar won the César de la meilleure actrice—makes its West Coast debut Thursday night at COLCOA.

BARBARA

Thursday, April 26, at 10:15 pm.

Directors Guild of America

7920 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

Above and below: Scenes from Barbara. Image credit: Gaumont.

COLCOA — MARGUERITE DURAS

“[Marguerite Duras] was a fascinating character… indomitable and tireless, who grabbed the world by the throat and said, ‘Look at me.’  But [she was] very intelligent, and able to think of many different strategies for dramatizing the basic facts of her life.” — Edmund White

Author of the autobiographical novel L’Amant, the screenplay Hiroshima mon amour (1959, for director Alain Resnais), and several diaries of the 1940s which play up her Resistance activities and play down her work with the Vichy regime, Duras was well known for telling a few stories many times, in many different ways.

Duras’ fictionalized “memoir of war” La douleur (written contemporaneously with the events it describes but not published until 1985, eleven years before her death) is the basis for a hallucinatory new film directed by Emmanuel Finkiel, a former assistant director for Jean-Luc Godard and Krzysztof Kieslowski.

LA DOULEUR / MEMOIR OF WAR stars Mélanie Thierry as Duras, and features Benoît Magimel, Benjamin Biolay, Shulamit Adar, and Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet as “Morland” (the code name for François Mitterrand during the Resistance).

COLCOA presents the West Coast premiere of the film, followed by a conversation with the director.

 

LA DOULEUR / MEMOIR OF WAR

Tuesday, April 24, at 5:40 pm.

Directors Guild of America

7920 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

Mélanie Thierry as Marguerite Duras in La Douleur / Memoir of War. Image credit: Music Box Films.

CHAVELA

“I live only for you and Diego.” — Frida Kahlo to Chavela Vargas

Costa Rica-born singer Chavela Vargas queered the Mexican ranchero patriarchy, and saw it all, played it all, lived it all—high and low.

Expect fireworks (and a devoted crowd) when Outfest screens the documentary CHAVELA (2017, directed by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi) on Saturday afternoon, July 8, at 4:15 pm.

DIRECTORS GUILD, 7920 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Post-screening reception in DGA atrium.

outfest.org

chavelavargasfilm.com

newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/postscript-mexicos-majestic-lesbian-chanteuse-chavela-vargas

Chavela Vargas.

chavela-vargas-1

COLCOA — L’ENVOI

Some highlights from the last five days of the 2017 COLCOA FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL:

A glossy biopic of a great star of the sixties and seventies, played by an unknown in a tour-de-force performance—DALIDA, starring Italian model Sveva Alviti. With Riccardo ScamarcioNiels Schneider, and COLCOA favorite Nicolas Duvauchelle as socialite “Le Comte de Saint-Germain.” Friday night, April 28, at 8:30 pm.

A TASTE OF INK / COMPTE TES BLESSURES. The post-punk music scene in Paris sets the stage for an explosive triangle: underground singer Vincent (Kévin Azaïs), his widowed father, and his father’s new, much younger girlfriend. This debut film by writer–director Morgan Simon screens on Saturday afternoon, April 29, at 1:20 pm.

Pre-fest screenings of A BAG OF MARBLES / UN SAC DE BILLES have triggered a strong emotional response. The Christian Duguay film screens early Saturday evening, April 29, at 5 pm.

MONSIEUR ET MADAME ADELMAN—the feature debut of playwright and political satirist Nicolas Bedos, about an egomaniacal writer and his wife—could be as divisive as last year’s Mon Roi. See for yourself on Saturday night, April 29, at 8:30 pm.

Romain Duris is a veteran of trench warfare trying to put his life back together in CEASE–FIRE / CESSEZ–LE–FEU, directed by Emmanuel Courcol, and screening on Monday afternoon, May 1, at 3:10 pm.

Lucie (comic Florence Foresti in a dramatic role) has survived cancer. Now she’s trying to recover from her recovery in Anne-Gaëlle Daval’s LADIES / DE PLUS BELLE, which co-stars Nicole Garcia and Mathieu Kassovitz. Monday evening, May 1, at 5:40 pm.

The story of Seine-Saint-Denis writer–performer Fabien Marsaud—his crippling swimming accident when he was 19, his recovery, and his rise as slam poet Grand Corps Malade—is told in STEP BY STEP / PATIENTS, co-directed by GCM and Mehdi Idir. Monday night, May 1, at 8:30.

In addition to these ticketed events, the following free screenings are available, first come, first served:

PLAYTIME (1967, restored, directed by Jacques Tati)

Saturday morning, April 29 at 10:50 am.

And all four screenings on Tuesday afternoon and early evening, May 2, are free.

These reruns of festival favorites screen in two DGA cinemas at 1 pm, 3:15 pm, 3:45 pm, and 5:45 pm. Titles will be announced the evening before on COLCOA’s website, Facebook, and Twitter.

 

COLCOA FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

Through May 2.

Directors Guild of America

7920 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.

Special thanks to Karine Choi at Big Time PR.

Top: Florence Foresti and Mathieu Kassovitz in Ladies / De plus belle.

Above: Romain Duris (left) in Cease-fire / Cessez-le-feu.

Below: Kévin Azaïs in A Taste of Ink / Compte tes blessures. Image credit: Cineuropa