The Angoulême Francophone Film Festival seems to have experienced a pivotal year for its 16th edition. This event, which has established itself over time as "THE festival of the new school year" as summarized by Olivier Henrard, Deputy Director General of the CNC (National Center of Cinema) has not been empty.
Despite scorching temperatures, this meeting of French-language cinema, which takes place from August 22 to 27, was full of spectators. And even better than that since it records a rather spectacular progression. "Last year," says the co-founder of the "FFA" Dominique Besnehard, "we recorded 53,000 paid admissions. Thisyear, we are moving towards 70,000 tickets sold. We have the impression with Marie-France Brière, co-founder of this festival with me, that Angoulême has become a bit the DNA of the France. The tastes of the Angoumoisin public resemble those of the French. It has become a kind of "test city" for distributors. The times, too, are propitious. People have just returned from vacation. They kind of want to see movies again. That's how we realized this year that French cinema had regained the hair of the beast and that it was bulging the chest, boosted the success of American films of the summerlike Barbie and Oppenheimer..."
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After an opening ceremony rich in events and emotions, carried by the charm and beauty of Laetitia Casta, president of the jury, while unveiling the next film by Fabrice Luchini, touching "drama" by Guillaume Nicloux La Petite, this 16th edition highlighted various French films, including Toni en famille, a comedy directed by the young Nathan Ambrosioni with Camille Cottin in the role of a forty-year-old mother who raises five children alone in southern France.
"I fell in love with this original French family comedy that renews the genre by moving away from the great successes a little formatted that followed the triumph of What have we done to God?", admits Dominique Besnehard.
Among the eleven films in the official competition competing for the Valois, equivalent to the palms for the festival, we note the presence of a first formidable film Première affaire, by Victoria Musiedlak, with the young actress of Sicilian and Ukrainian origin Noée Abita, already seen in The Passengers of the Night, or Slalom. "It's also our role not to miss such a great discovery," enthuses Besnehard. The film tells the story of how a young lawyer specializing in financial affairs discovers the joys and disillusionments of her profession by being propelled against her will on a criminal case in northern France.
"This year, what seems to me," continues the co-organizer of the festival, "is that seven of the eleven films in competition are directed by women. It was not a calculation on our part, but it proves that French cinema is changing, and in particular offers more and more strong roles to actresses such as Agnès Jaoui (La vie de ma mère), Anouk Grinberg (Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe) or Fanny Ardant (Ma France à moi)."
Highly applauded by the Angoumoisin public, Martin Provost's (Séraphine) Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe (scheduled for release in January 2024) allows Cécile de France to compose a painter's muse that is both charming and vibrant.
"A first public screening is always very decisive," admits Cécile de France with a smile. This is not the first time I have come to Angoulême to promote a film, but I have always found this festival to be full of love and tenderness. The FFA gives a little pulse of French cinema before the start of September. For me, it is really the relationship with the public of Angoulême that is very interesting. All of a sudden, it brings alive the film we shot in our corner with the whole team. The spectators of Angoulême are demanding and benevolent. As for the festival, it is simpler, popular, jovial, less elitist and snobbish than many others. In Angoulême, the important thing is the public. And for cinema to live, it is the public who is right. This is probably why it grows in notoriety year after year...
»Luchini, shock wave
Among the highlights of the event, the passage of Fabrice Luchini will obviously have left no spectators indifferent. "Luchini's presence in Angoulême brought back very good memories for all of us," admits Dominique Besnehard. He is a friend of forty years. His passage created a real shock wave. It was read that had wiped the plasters sixteen years ago during the first edition. When he was a hairdresser in Angoulême, his name was Robert at the time, his real name. To answer present, defend "La Petite", the opening film and participate in a "master class" that will have marked the spirits, he changed the work plan of Christophe Honoré's film that he is currently shooting in Italy! That's what I call friendship...
»In any case, it is in Angoulême that the public's appetite for French films of the autumn is best measured. "This event shows the great diversity of French cinema," concludes Olivier Henrard of the CNC. It has become an unmissable event for professionals and the general public. At the CNC, we help 162 festivals in France, in cinema but also audiovisual or animation. As a matter of principle, we wait to have a few years of hindsight on an event before supporting it, but in the case of the FFA, exceptionally, Véronique Cayla had decided to help it from the outset because it had positioned itself on a niche, the Francophonie, which is one of our priority axes. Today, producers and distributors need a trial run like this event to show the public and professionals their back-to-school films. Angoulême has been able to settle at the conjunction of these two roles, an event linked to the Francophonie coupled with a showcase of the cinema of the fall. That is probably what makes it indispensable.
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