Latest news with #FrenchCinema
France 24
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Tahar Rahim's 'Alpha' male subverted by Julia Ducournau
12:58 From the show Film critic Perrine Quennesson tells us why Palme d'Or-winning director Julia Ducournau's latest feature "Alpha" divided critics when it screened at Cannes. She explains how leading actor Tahar Rahim transformed himself for the role and salutes the French filmmaker's imaginative use of imagery in her daring films. We check out Quentin Dupieux's satire of influencer culture "The Piano Accident" and discuss "The Girls We Want", the promising début from director Prïncia Car. And for those looking for a sumptuous lesson in filmmaking, there's a Claude Chabrol retrospective happening in French cinemas all summer.
Al Arabiya
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Arabiya
Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet, French cinema power couple, call it quits
Oscar winner Marion Cotillard and actor-director Guillaume Canet announced their separation Friday after 18 years and two children together, breaking up a power relationship of French cinema. Cotillard won an Academy Award in 2008 for her performance as the legendary French singer Edith Piaf in 'La Vie en Rose' and is one of France's best-known stars internationally. She starred with Brad Pitt in the World War II romantic thriller 'Allied' and Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Inception.' Canet has acting, directing, and screenplay credits and played in 'The Beach' with DiCaprio. The 49-year-old Cotillard and 52-year-old Canet starred together in the French-Belgian film 'Love Me If You Dare' in 2003, a breakthrough box-office hit in France for her. They began dating in 2007. They announced their separation in a statement to the Agence France-Presse news agency that said they made the split public to avoid all speculation, rumors, and risky interpretations. It did not give a reason but said they were separating by common accord and with mutual goodwill. France-based agents for Cotillard and Canet did not respond to emails from The Associated Press.
Daily Mail
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Revealed in a shocking new book a year after the death of French screen legend Alain Delon... My father was 'the most beautiful man in movie history' – but he also beat up my mother and pointed a gun at me
The 'ice cold angel' of the golden age of French cinema, Alain Delon's mesmerising sex appeal was always tinged with a hint of danger. Dishonourably discharged from the French Navy after a tour of duty in Indochina, and caught up in a gangsters-and-orgies scandal in 1968, no one doubted that the man who memorably unzipped Marianne Faithfull's motorbike leathers with his teeth was a fighter as well as a lover.
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Three Friends review – so incredibly French it's almost a cliche
Please forgive the stereotyping, but this film is so irreducibly French that watching it may cause viewers to develop uncontrollable urges to drink red wine, consume serious literature and silent comedies, and on occasion shrug theatrically while uttering the words 'C'est la vie!' All of these activities – plus some even more typecast French antics, such as having extramarital affairs and discussing feelings in depth – are enjoyed by the characters here, a typically bourgeois ensemble that revolves around the three female friends of the title. Joan (gamine India Hair, sure to be played by Michelle Williams if there's ever an American remake) is an English teacher at a lycee in Lyons, the mother of adorable poppet Nina (Louise Vallas), the wife of French teacher Victor (Vincent Macaigne). One day, Joan confides to her two besties, fellow teacher Alice (Call My Agent's Camille Cottin) and art teacher Rebecca (Sara Forestier), that she's no longer 'in love' with Victor and is therefore questioning the survival of her marriage. When she eventually plucks up enough gumption to confess her lack of feelings to Victor, he doesn't take it well. Meanwhile, Rebecca is having an affair with Alice's husband Eric (Grégoire Ludig); Alice doesn't know but she doesn't seem bothered that he's a bit distant since, as she explains to Joan, she's never really loved him that deeply. And wouldn't you know it, she finds herself very tempted when she strikes up a long distance flirtation with artist Stéphane (Éric Caravaca) and asks Rebecca to be her alibi so she can go meet him one weekend – thereby opening up an opportunity for Rebecca and Eric to spend the weekend together themselves. The script by Carmen Leroi and the film's director Emmanuel Mouret is deft enough to keep things in constant comic-dramatic motion, with lovers and romantic prospects constantly cycling through the ensemble as people keep hooking up and then having second thoughts or at least questioning their assumptions. It's a minor miracle that the cast manages to charm throughout and keep the audience's sympathies – instead of repelling us with their manifest dishonesty and delusions. For instance, some may find Joan's belief in the primacy of being 'in love' a bit childish and jejune, but Hair imbues the woman with such endearing vulnerability it's hard not to forgive her flaws. Also, like any good French film, there's tons of tasteful interiors and chic clothes and much fuss made of food and fellowship, as well as of love. It's all a bit cliched, but made with such effortless elan it goes down a treat. Three Friends is at the Ciné Lumière, London, from 3 June.
Forbes
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Summer Travel On TV: To France!
Summer is coming on, and travels are ensuing. Some for vacation, some searching new locales where to take residence. Me, until further notice, I'm spending my time just as I did the pandemic and the Palisades Fire: At home, watching foreign series on my TV. Although I am always down for a damaged detective solving cases in an arctic landscape, in Finnish, Swedish, or Danish, lately I've found myself compelled by TV series offerings from France, most of which are available in the French original with English subtitles, and some also offered subtitled. So join me on my TV Vacation adventure! Bon Voyage! "Carême on Apple TV+ This historical drama based on real characters tells the story of the machinations of Talleyrand during the rise and reign of Napoleon, as seen through the eyes of Carême, one of Frances most famous pastry chefs, who, of course, is a sensualist making love opportunistically to a series of equally opportunistic lovers including none other than Josephine – it is all very French and very enjoyable. Reformed on Max In French, the title is 'Le Sens des Choses' which translates as 'The sense of things,' which comes from the Passover Haggadah, and speaks to the spiritual, emotional, and overall impact of the ritual and its significance. Reformed is the story of Lea, (played with great warmth and charm by Elsa Guedj) a young French woman, unmarried, who moves back in with her father (played by Eric Elmosnino), in his apartment. The father is a widower, and a psychoanalyst whose own mother is a Holocaust survivor and is losing her memory. Lea has dropped out of medical school to become a reformed Rabbi – which to her father is a sacrilege. Each episode involves a problem that has been brought to her, for which she is often unsure of the proper response. Yet by the close, she has come up with a solution that is wise and expressive of Jewish values. It is not a show that moves at an American pace. It is at moments funny, awkward, and occasionally, sad. It is definitely the kind of show where you feel good after every episode. The first season has eight episode. A second season has been ordered. Try it. You may like it. Asterix and Obelix: The Big Fight on Netflix Asterix and Obelix are beloved French comic book characters known all over the French speaking world, who live before the Common Era in a small village of Gaulois, in what today is Brittany, resisting the Roman Empire of Julius Caesar. Their druid has a magic potion that grants them superhuman strength, whose powers Obelix has permanently having fallen in the tub as a child; while Asterix, the brains of the two, has only when he quaffs the potion. Their many, many adventures have taken place in a series of books, and then a series of movies (often with the roles played by France's greatest actors), and finally, now, in a five part animated series that is currently streaming on Netflix, in French original with subtitles, or in a dubbed version. One sign of the deep affection for Asterix and Obelix, is that the project has attracted incredible animators, and the series is written and directed by Alain Chabat one of France's most successful and beloved comedy writers. The five episodes are filled with delightful word play, gags, and a certain French pride and chauvinism particularly when compared to the puffed up pompous Romans. The Art of Crime on Mhz The Art of Crime is multi-year series (there are four seasons currently available) in which an art historian and a detective to solve art-related crimes. As is standard for this sort of pairing, she's upper class, he lower. She sees a psychiatrist, he should. Eleonore Bernheim stars as the art expert, and she is both charming and enthusiastic. There few murders in this series, and if so they are rarely gruesome, but the art is wonderful as is the scenes of Paris as they pass by. A pleasure for which I am not guilty at all.
