Screening at Lumiere cinema through June, the 2024 French Film Festival is described by the festival’s director and documentary film maker, Fergus Grady as a ‘grand Cru’ [superior wine], opening with The Three musketeers:  D’Artagnan,  as well as The President’s Wife and A Difficult Year, ‘favourites  at the Toronto  International Film Festival’.  

Also worthy of attention is Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe, reflecting on the life of French artist, Pierre Bonnard (1867 – 1947) whose paintings reside somewhere between Claude Monet’s impressionism and Mark Rothko’s early figurative paintings.  Directed by French film director, writer and actor, Martin Provost’s, Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe, centres its attention on their relationship.  In the process, Provost answers the question he raises: What do Pierre and Marthe, who come from very different social classes, have in common? The love of painting, the love of art, sexuality, everything that is very organic, that nourishes creation and that we find in Bonnard’s paintings: it is surprisingly carnal and luminous. (see: https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/442947/ 

DETAILS:

French Film Festival 2024, 6 – 26 June

The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora

26 Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch

For programme and details: https://lumierecinemas.co.nz/french-film-festival-2024

IMAGE: Vincent Macaigne as Bonnard in director Martin Provost’s Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe, 2023