French Film Festival Malaysia 2015

French Art and Film Festival Malaysia 2015
www.expatgomalaysia.com/.../french-art-and-film-festival-malaysia-201...



Apr 1, 2015 - Now entering its 14^th edition, the French Art and Film Festival (FAFF) returns to thrill multi-cultured audiences in both the Klang Valley and  Penang.
The French Art and Film Festival 2015 may have just ended in KL, but why don't you check out the movies here:
http://faff.com.my/films/

For me, I and my partner watched 6 movies back to back over 3 nights!!

 On the first night, we took in 3 Autumns and 3 Winters

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/2-autumns-3-winters-2014
(read Roger Ebert's excellent review)

2 AUTOMNES, 3 HIVERS
2 AUTUMNS, 3 WINTERS
Genre Romantic comedy
By Sébastien Betbeder
Release year 2013
With Vincent Macaigne, Maud Wyler, Bastien Bouillon and Audrey Bastien
Running time 1:33
Awards Official selection: ACID – 2013 Festival de Cannes, Festival Paris Cinéma, 2013 BFI London
Rating P13

Cinq saisons d’un amour à Paris aujourd’hui. A 33 ans, Arman a décidé de changer de vie. Pour commencer, il court. Amélie poursuit la sienne – de vie, et court elle aussi. Leur première rencontre est un choc. La seconde sera un coup de couteau en plein cœur.
Un film indépendant tour à tour drôle et poignant qui décrit avec minutie les complications de la constitution d’un couple moderne.

Five seasons of a love story in Paris nowadays. At the age of 33, Arman has decided to change his life. He starts by running. Amélie carries on with her life, and runs as well. Their first encounter is a shock. The second will be a stab in the heart.
An independent film alternately funny and poignant that describes meticulously the complexities of the formation of a modern couple.

 followed by Lulu in the Nude

LULU FEMME NUE
LULU IN THE NUDE
Genre Comedy drama
By Solveig Anspach
Release year 2013
With Karin Viard, Bouli Lanners, Claude Gensac
Running time 1:27
Rating P13

A la suite d’un entretien d’embauche raté, Lulu, mariée et mère de trois enfants, part sur un coup de tête dans une ville balnéaire de Vendée.
Dans sa quête de renouveau et de liberté, elle croise le chemin de gens qui sont, eux aussi, au bord du monde : un homme protecteur tout juste sorti de prison, une vieille femme au caractère bien trempé et une employée harcelée par sa patronne…

Following a failed job interview, Lulu, married and mother of three children, leaves on an impulse to a seaside town of Vendée.
In her quest for change and freedom, her path crosses with people who, like herself, are at the edge of the world: a protective man just released from jail, an old woman with a sturdy character and an employee hassled by her boss…

 How to get the free tickets??? Well I happened to come across this notice in the NST...

 and the STAR and the Metro (which I do not buy)

 you have to collect all the coupons and queue up to exchange for tickets.....well unemployed people like me could have all the time in the world to q for the tixs

 eeerrrr....so many unemployed people too? They do not look old so they are not retirees like me, but why do they have the time to q?

 anyway, the queue was not that long and we all were able to join back the queue to get more tickets...as long as you have the coupons

 the next day, the same people queued too!!!! hehehe....all in all, 3 newpapers (Star, NST, Metro) gave the tickets on 3 different days.

 wheeee!!! my tickets!!! from the NST

 from the STAR 

 posters for the French Film Festival

 Here are 3 schedules for 3 different cinemas, and I chose Mid Valley and One Utama.

At One U we saw Playing Dead 

JE FAIS LE MORT
PLAYING DEAD
Genre Comedy
By Jean-Paul Salomé
Release year 2012
With François Damiens and Géraldine Nakache
Running time 1:45
Rating P13

Comédien au caractère difficile, Jean peine à se faire un nom dans le métier. Dépité, il accepte un job quelque peu étrange : jouer le rôle du mort lors de reconstitutions de scènes de crime. Prenant son rôle très à cœur, son obsession du détail va cependant permettre à Noémie, jeune procureur, d’éclairer une délicate affaire de meurtres en série à Megève…
Comédie burlesque s’inspirant des gags à la Blake Edwards, Je Fais le Mort est portée par le couple drôlissime formé par Géraldine Nakache et François Damiens.

Bad-tempered actor, Jean struggles to build a professional reputation. Disheartened, he accepts a rather peculiar job: to play the role of the dead person in re-enactments of crime scenes. Taking to heart his role, his obsession for details will however allow Noémie, young prosecutor, to solve a tricky serial murder case in Megève…
A burlesque comedy inspired by Blake Edwards’ gags, Playing Dead is supported by a hilarious couple formed by Géraldine Nakache and François Damiens.

followed by The French Minister

QUAI D’ORSAY
THE FRENCH MINISTER
Genre Comedy
By Bertrand Tavernier
Release year 2013
With Thierry Lhermitte, Niels Arestrup, Raphaël Personnaz, Julie Gayet
Running time 1:53
Awards 2014 César Award for Best Supporting Actor to Niels Arestrup
Rating P13

Une première comédie rythmée par Bertrand Tavernier adaptée de la BD éponyme. Arthur Vlaminck est un jeune énarque fraîchement entré au Quai d’Orsay, Il a été embauché pour rédiger les discours du charismatique Ministre des Affaires Étrangeres, Alexandre Taillard de Vorms. Commence alors un véritable apprentissage pour lui dans les couloirs sans fin du ministère, entre le flegme du Directeur du Cabinet, le tempérament fougueux du Ministre et les coups bas orchestrés par ses adversaires pleins d’ambition…

A first comedy based on the eponymous comic brought to life by Bertrand Tavernier. Arthur Vlaminck is a young graduate from the French School of National Administration, recently hired by the Quai d’Orsay in order to write the speeches of Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexandre Taillard de Vorms. A true learning process ensues for him in the endless corridors of the ministry, between the Cabinet Director’s stolidity, the Minister’s fiery temper and the low blows orchestrated by his ambitious opponents…

 and  Playground Chronicles ,

CHRONIQUES D’UNE COUR DE RÉCRÉ
PLAYGROUND CHRONICLES
Genre Comedy drama
By Brahim Fritah
Release year 2013
With Yanis Bahloul, Vincent Rottiers, Philippe Rebbot, Dalila Ennadre
Running time 1:25
Rating P13

Pour son premier film, le réalisateur Brahim Fritah restitue avec naturalisme une part de son enfance au début des années 1980. Brahim raconte sa vie à l’école, ses jeux, ses rêves, mais se fait aussi le témoin de son époque et de son environnement socio-culturel au moment où l’usine de son père se voit délocalisée.

In his first movie, Director Brahim Fritah’s captures with naturalism part of his childhood in the early 1980s. Brahim talks about his life at school, his games, his dreams, but also bears witness to his time and socio-cultural environment, at the time when his father’s factory was relocated.

followed by Bright Days Ahead.

LES BEAUX JOURS
BRIGHT DAYS AHEAD
Genre Comedy drama
By Marion Vernoux
Release year 2013
With Fanny Ardant, Laurent Lafitte, Patrick Chesnais, Jean-François Stévenin
Running time 1:34
Rating 18

Des beaux jours ? Caroline, la soixantaine et fraîchement retraitée, n’a que ça devant elle. Mais que faire de tout ce temps libre ? Quand ses enfants lui offrent un abonnement à un club de retraités, elle y rencontre un homme plus jeune qu’elle…
Fanny Ardant et Laurent Lafitte de la Comédie Française, forment un duo peu conventionnel dans cette comédie réaliste sur l’amour et ses tribulations.

Bright days? Caroline, in her sixties and recently retired, has them ahead. But what to do with all this free time? When her children give her a membership to a senior club as a present, she meets there a younger man…
Fanny Ardant and Laurent Lafitte from the Comédie Française form an unconventional duo in this realistic comedy about love and its vicissitudes.

We enjoyed Bright Days Ahead because it was uncensored and fun to see 65 year old Caroline getting into romantic trysts with her young lover, shocking perhaps but it examined the relationship between retired wife  and husband, a situation I can relate to perhaps, though not the sexy parts with a younger man(I hope I do not have to relate to that hehehe...)

We also liked Lulu in the Nude, it showed us how other people live in other countries, here it is France, and Lulu the neglected wife was quite adventurous in "losing" herself for a few days, though we were a bit shocked to see her shacking up with a near homeless man.....and also the attempts at blocking her naked body as she rose from the sea (with a piece of paper blocking the projector) was irritating and crude!!!! Likewise the attempts at blocking some "f" words!!!

3 Autumns and 3 Winters was fun, we appreciate that we have careers, as jobs seem to be hard to come by  in France, and also finding love does not seem to be as easy as it is all cracked up to be in the Country of Love.  

Playing Dead was hilarious, and enjoyable, but not  The French Minister, or Playground Chronicles......

Anyway, we were glad to be able to have the chance to see some French Movies and for free, at that.

Like Father, Like Son (Soshite Chichi ni Naru | そして父になる)

My 2 free tickets to any movie at eh Japanese film festival and I chose "Like Father Like Son"

????ebb and flow of paternal Love???? hahah

If you are a parent,

 and everybody has parents, Paternal Love has no ebb,

 but NON STOP FLOW!!!

The movie moved at a slow pace but the story line was interesting although improbable yet stereotyped (exchanged babies and prince-and-pauper type) but I always like to see how Japanese people live and work and talk and how they bring up their children...Japanese culture piques my interest.

These are the main players in the move.....
"Real" parents and exchanged children.......

this is the son of the intelligent gifted man...he was  brought up in a rough and tumble family

this is the son of the  rough, but hands on "pauper" dad...he was nurtured and brought up in a privileged, cosseted  life

The  not so rich father, but rich in experiences and memories of childhood..this is what he can give his sons, no expensive piano lessons or IQ classes.

 Contemplation and reflection time : how? 
take back my real son?
 give up my son who is not my son,
 but my son whom I have nurtured for 6 years?
for a son I hardly know but whose blood is mine?

 Children have feelings too, they are not toys, or possessions or pets to be exchanged or given back. heck, you would not even exchange your pets!!!

 You might be able to predict the ending,
 and the movie might even induce you to shed a tear or two...

 The child actors stole the show with their innocence and natural ability: just being themselves..

Too handsome to be a dad???? hahaha......what lah, such a dashing actor acting as the arrogant awfully clever and rich and talented and high climbing corporate dad

This film was nominated for an award at the FESTIVAL OF CANNES!!! Impressive!!! Dreamworks has acquired the rights to make a Hollywood version, but remember, I saw it in Japanese first.

Read review by Roger Ebert here

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/like-father-like-son-2014

 Keita (Keita Ninomiya) and Ryusei (Shogen Hwang) are wonderful

And read the synopsis here:

Like Father, Like Son (Soshite Chichi ni Naru | そして父になる)

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Rating: TBD
Country: Japan
Release Date: September 23, 2013 (Japan)

• Would you choose your natural son, or the son you believed was yours after spending 6 years together? Kore-eda Hirokazu, the globally acclaimed director of "Nobody Knows", "Still Walking" and "I Wish", returns to the big screen with another family - a family thrown into torment after a phone call from the hospital where the son was born... Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life as a winner. Then one day, he and his wife, Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital. Their 6-year-old son, Keita, is not 'their' son - the hospital gave them the wrong baby. Ryota is forced to make a life-changing decision, to choose between 'nature' and 'nurture.' Seeing Midori's devotion to Keita even after learning his origin, and communicating with the rough yet caring family that has raised his natural son for the last six years, Ryota also starts to question himself: has he really been a 'father' all these years...
  - Written by Wild Bunch

Mourning Recipe (四十九日のレシピ)Recipe of 49 Days

The Japanese movie shown on the Opening Night of the Japanese Film Festival had a strange title: Mourning Recipe or Recipe of 49 days which consisted of a book of illustrations done by the stepmother while she was alive

on life's lessons

 life's  recipes for success 

and of course his and her favourite food. 

The recipes somehow contained snippets and secrets not only of her seemingly mundane routine, 

but will unravel mysteries and revelations hitherto unknown while she was living.

“The Mourning Recipe”has officially been invited to enter the Focus on World Cinema section of the Montreal International Film Festival which will take place from August 22nd to September 2nd, 2013. The section focuses on the noteworthy films of the world. The Japanese film,“The Mourning Reciepe”also depicts the ancient Japanese tradition of mourning in which the deceased is believed to be at the state of intermediate existence between one’s death and rebirth which is 49 days in Japan. The mourning of 49 days is the time to respect the memory of the deceased and also reflect on life and death through the memory of the deceased and search for the spiritual transcendence. It is also a time for the families left behind to confront the death of the person in the relaxed state of mind.from: Cinecrayon

Poster below:

The Father who did not know much about his 2nd wife's life and past, seeking to find out about these only after she dies.

The Daughter who is taking a break from wayward but loving husband and contemplating a divorce because mistress is pregnant 

Both embark on a journey of self discovery while discovering and unravelling the riddles  of the cryptic recipes left behind by dead 2nd wife/mother whom they had grown to love.

The husband, the zany rehab girl, the Brazilian-Japanese hired help, the razor sharp tongued auntie

\

the four of them examines the funny recipe book

20 year old reformed girl, bullied boy, aggrieved father who just lost his wife, tortured infertile daughter who just left her husband, the husband who has been ensnared by a mistress who gets pregnant and wants to take over his life and apartment

Yuriko (Nagasaku Hiromi) 

Hiromi as the daughter whose infertility causes her husband to have a baby with a mistress. She comes home to mull her impending divorce and to keep her father company, and in the process discovers things about her late step mother that she and her father did not know when she was alive.

"Hiromi Nagasaku (永作 博美 Nagasaku Hiromi, born October 14, 1970 in Namegata, Ibaraki) is a Japanese actress and singer. She was a member of the J-pop group Ribbon. Nagasaku appeared in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2003 film Doppelganger. She played a supporting role in the 2007 film Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!, for which she won the awards for Best Supporting Actress at the 32nd Hochi Film Awards and the Kinema Junpo magazine. She won the Best Supporting Actress award for Rebirth at the 35th Japan Academy Prize in 2012." from Cinecrayon

Renji Ishibashi as the depressed old man whose 2nd wife (whom he seems to know so little about) has just died

Renji Ishibashi (石橋 蓮司 Ishibashi Renji), born August 9, 1941 in Shinagawa, Tokyo is a Japanese actor and voice actor. He won the award for best supporting actor at the 15th Hochi Film Award for Rōnin-gai. from Cinecrayon

Fumi Nikaido as the sex addicted reform girl sent to search for the mourning recipe and to look after the old man

Fumi Nikaido was born on September 21, 1994 in Naha, a southern coastal town on Okinawa Island, the largest island in the Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. At age twelve she was scouted by Sony Music Artists after her picture appeared in an Okinawa edition of ‘Picture Book of Beautiful Girls’, a free regional publication that features local amateurs as models.

This early discovery created the opportunity for her to work as a model and television actress while still in her early teens. Nikaido began to appear regularly in prominent fashion and lifestyle magazines and her ‘girl next door’ look quickly helped her garner roles in television campaigns for companies ranging from Tokyu Electric Railway (2007) to Koikeya Potato Chips (2009/2010), among other nationally distributed advertisements. from Cinecrayon

The movie features a Japanese-Brazilian character, hula, 

and Hawaiian Queen Lili’uokalani’s song “Aloha Oe.”

we enjoyed the movie as the characters kept us entertained, language was not an issue, and the line that affected us most was

 "silly girl, such an important piece of information she did not tell me while she was alive"

so, whatever one  want to tell one's  loved one, for heaven's sake, TELL NOW before one dies!!!! 

Opening of Japanese Film Festival 9 September

JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL 2014  OPENING CEREMONY

Had 2 invites to the above opening ceremony so I dressed myself up in my little black dress and found myself at the THX foyer...

 Opening Ceremony Event Details

   

Date: 9 September 2014

Time: 7.00pm - 10.50pm

Venue: GSC Pavilion KL

 Event Itinerary

7.00pm: Arrival of Guests and Media

             Refreshments at THX Foyer

 grapes skewered on little squares of yellow and red melon

 Girls dress in wraparound tops ala kimono  serving us canapes

 the aforesaid fruits and green tea jelly..just a blob

 trying to look smoky, dusky and smoulderingly hot, but not succeeding

 d'ya think I am sexy?

 more bite sized food

 prawn tempura

 actually they are spring rolls

 chicken, really

 fresh supplies of springrolls were brought out

only a select few were invited

 8.30pm: Photo Opportunity

8.00pm: Guest Adjourn to Hall 3

8.10pm: Opening Ceremony Begins

             Welcome Address by Ms. Koh Mei Lee

8.20pm: Opening Speech by Mr. Yoshinori KODAMA,

             Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission,

           Embassy of Japan

8.40pm: Screening of “Mourning Recipe”

10.50pm: Event ends....

hahaha....okay okay, I will write a short review of the above 

movie,

but first, here's a teaser:

caught in the act by daughter!!!
and don't jump into a conclusion...
it is not what you think!!

For other movies shown during the festival check here:

http://www.jfkl.org.my/events/japanese-film-festival-2014/