Every spri
ng, Hopkins hosts the JHU Tournées French cinema festival. Funded in part by the Embassy of France in the United States, the events are free and open to the public. Today marks the first day of this year’s Tournées Festival. In addition to many not-to-miss movies, there will also be presentations by faculty members who are experts in the field.
- With a romantic comedy about chocolate lovers, who can go wrong? Read some reviews of Romantic Anonymous (or Les Émotifs anonymes) by Jean-Pierre Améris.
- Werner Herzog‘s recent critically-acclaimed documentary will be shown, giving us insight into the wonderful prehistoric drawings found in the Chauvet cave in France: Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
- The Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki shot his film Le Havre in 2011. It is his second film in the French language, after La Vie de Bohème from 1992.
- Bertrand Bonello’s film House of Pleasures describes the life in a brothel at the end of the 19th century.
- Tales of the Night is an animated movie by Michel Ocelot. Some of this director’s works are available in the library.
- Moi, petite fille de treize ans, a documentary by Elisabeth Coronel, Florence Gaillard, and Arnaud de Mezamat, presents the memories of Simone Lagrange, whose family was involved in the Resistance during WWII and who was a prisoner in Auschwitz.
- Incendies, by Denis Villeneuve is adapted from the play Scorched by Wadji Mouawad.
In case you cannot make it to all these sessions, our library will soon own copies of each of these films in our collection. And we have many other resources that you may find interesting, including a library guide and a large collection of DVDs and video tapes. Would you like to read materials related to these French films? There is a guide for French literature and culture, too. Enjoy!