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FESTIVALS / AWARDS France

The La Rochelle Film Festival celebrates its 50-year anniversary in style

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- FEMA is set to present upwards of 200 films between 1 - 10 July, including 47 recent film crushes hailing from all over the world, and tributes to Joanna Hogg, Jonás Trueba and Alain Delon

The La Rochelle Film Festival celebrates its 50-year anniversary in style
You Have to Come and See It by Jonás Trueba

Now presided over by producer Sylvie Pialat, and much appreciated for the quality and diversity of its programmes, its popularity with the public (86,492 admissions in 2019) and its strictly non-competitive format, the La Rochelle Film Festival (FEMA) will be celebrating its 50th anniversary between 1 and 10 July, with over 200 films set for the showcase.

In the tributes line-up, the legendary Alain Delon stands tall (with 21 films on the agenda), alongside two rising stars (set to make the journey to La Rochelle) of European arthouse cinema: English director Joanna Hogg (in 5 feature films, her upcoming opus standing a very good chance of taking part in the next Venetian competition) and Spain’s Jonás Trueba (by way of six feature films, including You Have to Come and See It [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jonás Trueba
film profile
]
, which was recently released in Spain and is set to take part in the official competition of the Karlovy Vary Festival, which is kicking off this Friday).

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On the retrospectives agenda, the complete works of Pier Paolo Pasolini are set for the showcase, as is a focus on Bulgarian filmmaker Binka Zhelyazkova (who started her career in 1957, with four of her nine films being censored in her homeland) and another on Audrey Hepburn. The Discovery line-up, meanwhile, will be dedicated to New Ukrainian Cinema (notably the recent titles Stop-Zemlia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kateryna Gornostai
film profile
]
by Kateryna Gornostai, Klondike [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maryna Er Gorbach
film profile
]
by Maryna Er Gorbach and Pamfir [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
interview: Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
film profile
]
by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk). Likewise worth a mention is a Music Lesson revolving around Ennio Morricone (in the presence of Marco Morricone and Marco Tullio Giordana and featuring a screening of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Ennio [+see also:
film review
trailer
making of
film profile
]
which will be released in France on 6 July) and an Animated Editing Lesson delivered by editor Valérie Loiseleux alongside director of photography Renato Berta.

And that’s without forgetting the 26 films gracing the History of Portuguese Film line-up (including Cannes titles Will-O’-The-Wisp [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: João Pedro Rodrigues
film profile
]
by João Pedro Rodrigues and Alma Viva [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristèle Alves Meira
film profile
]
by Cristèle Alves Meira), the 21 heritage works in the From Yesterday to Today section, a programme celebrating the 30-year anniversary of ACID (showcasing Cannes’ opening movie The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Lucas Delangle), A Day in Five Films featuring Brad Pitt, silent films accompanied by an orchestra, and animation by way of a Children’s line-up, as well as an exploration of works by Bulgaria’s Andrey Koulev and the Czech Republic’s Jiří Brdečka.

It’s a sweeping panorama, punctuated by the favourite films of the year populating the Here and Elsewhere section: 47 feature films hailing from all over the world, at least twenty of which are heading to La Rochelle off the back of Cannes, including Swedish director Ruben Ostlünd’s Palme d’Or winner Triangle of Sadness [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile
]
, the award-winning Boy From Heaven [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tarik Saleh
film profile
]
by his compatriot Tarik Saleh, and competitors Forever Young [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
film profile
]
by Italian-French director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Pacifiction [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Albert Serra
film profile
]
by Spain’s Albert Serra and R.M.N. [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Judith State
film profile
]
by Romania’s Cristian Mungiu. This batallion of Cannes movies is rounded off by various other works, including an armful of French titles, notably One Fine Morning [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Mia Hansen-Løve, The Worst Ones [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Romane Gueret and Lise Akoka
film profile
]
by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, and The Five Devils [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Léa Mysius (which is set to open the festival).

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(Translated from French)

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