Events

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Alwan for the Arts, New York’s leader in promoting the diverse culture and arts of the Middle East, presents So You Think You Can Dabkeh, a series exploring the traditional and popular line dances of the Levant region of the Middle East. Through participatory and performance events in Manhattan and Brooklyn from September 8 - October 13, 2012, Alwan will celebrate one of the most publicly performed and beloved traditional dances of Arab Americans. The events are open to the public and funded in part by NYSCA.

17 GIRLS (Cannes Film Festival International’s Critics Week selection), is Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s provocative debut feature focusing on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact, a story inspired by a true headline-grabbing case which took place in Massachusetts.

When Camille (Louise Grinberg, The Class) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high-school classmates to follow suit, so they can raise their children collectively, an act at once unexpected and incomprehensible.  It’s only a matter of time, before seventeen girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos.  Set in the writer-directors’ small, seaside hometown of Lorient in Brittany, 17 GIRLS is a reflection on adolescence, body image, friendship and the perplexing realities of growing up.

Prior to 17 GIRLS, Delphine (also a novelist) and Muriel Coulin (a documentary director) directed five award-winning short films together. Louise Gr

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André S. Labarthe in person for select screenings on 10/3 and 10/4!

In 1964, film critic and filmmaker André S. Labarthe, together with Janine Bazin, widow of influential film theorist André Bazin, approached the French television channel ORTF about starting a program that would resemble the long, in-depth interviews with film directors that magazines such as Cahiers du cinéma and Positif regularly published. ORTF gave the green light, and Cinéastes de notre temps (Filmmakers of Our Time) was born. Many of the programs were dedicated to older directors, then in retirement or in the final stages of their careers. Instead of TV journalists, Labarthe and Bazin would often ask well-known film directors to make these programs: thus, Jacques Rivette on Jean Renoir, or Jacques Rozier on Jean Vigo.

Cinéastes de notre temps lasted until 1971, when ORTF, for various clear and unclear reasons, decided to terminate production. Over the follo

The painted Narcissus, attributed to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio ca 1599, will be the focal image of french artist Francine LeClercq's installation, whereas the erring gaze of Narcissus, the visual echo reverberating between the illusionistic picture plane and the actual gallery setting, the existential reciprocity between the subject and object, form and content, …, are parallel notions and traits that LeClercq uses to investigate the modern context and premise within which a work may be produced, placed and perceived. 

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Narcissus, la nouvelle exposition de l'artiste française Francine LeClercq est à découvrir du 4 au 27 Octobre à la gallerie Soho20 à Chelsea. Cette installation tourne autour de l'oeuvre "Narcissus" attribuée à Caravaggio.

For preview and images, please visit: http://francineleclercq.blogspot.com/

For further information, please contact Jenn Dierdorf at info@soho20gallery.com

Vendredi 12 Octobre 2012, alors que les chefs d’État des 75 pays membres et membres observateurs de l’OIF se réuniront au Sommet de Kinshasa  pour définir les grandes orientations politiques de la Francophonie, des fonctionnaires  des Organisations internationales (OI) s’évertueront  à parler français et à initier, dans leur environnement professionnel; des activités relatives aux valeurs de la Francophonie. Cette initiative, qui se veut ludique,  sera  l’occasion de souligner l’importance des  diversités linguistiques, culturelles et conceptuelles dans le fonctionnement des OI.

Bien que concentré sur les institutions multilatérales, l’événement  offre à tous la possibilité de participer aux activités  diplomatiques, médiatiques et culturelles préparatoires. Les personnes intéressées  peuvent s’inscrire sur le site de l’Assemblée des francophones fonctionnaires des organisations internationales (AFFOI).

Pour en savoir plus : http://www.affoi.org/JFOI.php

MPI Pictures is proud to announce the release of THE BIG PICTURE, Eric Lartigau’s French thriller adapted from Douglas Kennedy’s American novel, starring Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Heartbreaker,) Marina Foïs, Neils Arestrup and Catherine Deneuve.  THE BIG PICTURE is scheduled to open in New York at Lincoln Plaza Cinema and IFC Center on Friday, October 12.

Paul Exben (Romain Duris in an intense perfomance) is a handsome and successful thirty-something Parisian corporate lawyer with a beautiful wife, two children, and a glimmering future as a partner in the firm he co-owns with his mentor, Anne (Catherine Deneuve.) But behind this deceptively perfect bourgeois façade lies a desire for creative fulfillment, a restless spirit who despises his conformist life and envies the freedom of his neighbor Greg (Eric Ruf,) an uncompromising photojournalist.

Greg’s unexpected death throws Paul’s life into chaos, and he makes a startling decision that pushes him into unknown territor

Lola 

1961. France. Written and directed by Jacques Demy. With Anouk Aimée, Marc Michel, Alan Scott, Jacques Harden, Elina Labourdette. Demy’s insouciant first feature—shot by Raoul Coutard in black-and-white CinemaScope—is also his most New Wave, and Lola herself, the stunningly beautiful Anouk Aimée, kicks off To Save and Project by introducing it. Dedicated to Max Ophuls, Lola begins with a white Cadillac convertible parked on a French beach. American sailors roam through the port (Demy’s hometown of Nantes) and a sad young man, just fired from his boring job, seeks solace in an obscure Mark Robson movie with an aging Gary Cooper. This fondness for fantasy America extends to Lola’s heroine: Aimée’s romantic character may be named for Marlene Dietrich’s femme fatale, but basically she’s playing a Gallic version of Marilyn Monroe—at once brazen and vulnerable, voluptuous, and childlike. Full of breathy chatter and giggly innocence, she’s a siren who explains: “There’s a bit of happine