On Monday, the French department screened the first film of their Albertine Cinématèque Film Festival in the Language Center at Swan Hall.
The film “Gagarine,” directed by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, tells the story of 16-year-old Yuri who has lived his whole life in the Gagarine housing projects outside of Paris. When Gagarine is deemed unsafe to inhabit and will be torn down, Yuri uses his unique skills to defend his home.
“Gagarine” is the first of three films that will be screened this semester as part of the Film Festival.
Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp, associate professor of French and film and associate chair of the department of modern classical language and literatures, worked with the department of film media to select the films for the festival.
Over the summer, the department applied for a grant and received $2,400 to buy the rights to screen the films so the event could be open to the public, according to Kealhofer-Kemp. The grant was sponsored by Alberine Cinématèque, a program of the Franco-American Cultural Exchange Foundation, Villa Albertine and the Centre Nationale du Cinema.
The films were selected from a pre-approved list, and Kealhofer-Kemp and the film department chose films based on their theme “le regard.”
“I wanted to have a variety of different kinds of films with different types of filmmaking and themes, but they’re all connected,” Kealhofer-Kemp said. “The theme that I chose was ‘le regard’; looking, looking at others, observing, being looked at. So they all touch on that theme.”
The next film, “The Super 8 Years”, will be shown on Oct. 26, in the screening room of Swan Hall, room 304.
“The Super 8 Years” is a documentary about Annie Earneaux, 2022 nobel laureate, and was put together by Erneaux and her son. The film features home movies filmed by Erneaux’s husband on super 8 film.
Kemp’s class, FRN 412: Resistance Rebellion, and Solidarity in French Language Cinema as well as professor Keith Brown’s class FLM 312: 16mm Filmmaking will be attending the screening.
“The [film media] students are studying this type of film [Super 8] so it will be really interesting to have the students in that class be able to talk to us about the technical aspects of what it’s like to shoot on that actual film, and then students in my class can provide the French cultural aspect,” Kemp said.
The last film of this semester will be screened on Nov. 1 in Swan Hall room 301. “Return to Seoul” tells the story of a young woman born in Korea, but raised in France, who goes back to Korea for the first time as an adult.
Kemp and the film media department wanted to pick films that would be appealing to students, but also films that they would not have already seen.
“I’m interested in films that have a lot of cultural exchanges and are looking at things in a new way,” Kemp said. “This film today looks at the banlieu suburbs of Paris, which is not portrayed in a very positive light in a lot of films, and this provides a different perspective on that.”
Watching the films together and opening the event to the public also provide students with a way to gather as a community.
“I’m a big film fan myself, and I watch a lot of films at home, but there’s something special about being able to watch a film with other people and experience it all together,” said Kemp.
French and Education major Benjamin McMichael shares Kemp’s view of watching movies as a group.
“I am currently in French 412, and our professor told us we could come see this during our class time,” McMichael said. “I came because I thought it would be nice to watch a film altogether with people from the class.
The Albertine Cinématèque Film Festival will show a total of six movies, three in the fall semester and three in the spring.