Alliance Francaise de Madras

in association with

NDTV Lumiere and ICAF

presents

LOUIS MALLE FILM FESTIVAL

LOUIS MALLE FILM FESTIVAL - Mon 15th to Fri 19th September 2008, 6:30pm at the South Indian Film Chamber Theatre

Mon 15th Sept 2008 - View Calender
Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud, (Elevators to the gallows) with Maurice Ronet and Jeanne Moreau, 1958 / 88 mins

Florence Carala and her lover Julien Tavernier, an ex - paratrooper want to murder her husband by faking a suicide. But after Julien has killed him and he puts his things in his car, he finds he has forgotten the rope outside the window and he returns to the building to remove it…

Tue 16th Sept 2008 - View Calender
Les Amants, (The lovers) with Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Marc Bory, 1958 / 90 mins

Jeanne Moreau plays a fashion-obsessed provincial wife whose life is changed by a brusquely non-hypocritical young man. Malle’s guiltless treatment of adultery caused a furor when first released; today its genuine passion is still remarkable.

Wed 17th Sept 2008 - View Calender
Feu Follet, (The fire within), 1963 / 108 mins

Life has become unbearably painful for Alain who is in his early 30s. He once used alcohol to dull the pain. Although he is constantly distressed, he leaves the hospital and tries to meet good old friends. None of them will be helpful, increasing Alain’s distress.

Thurs 18th Sept 2008 - View Calender
Au Revoir les Enfants,( Goodbye children), 1987 / 104 min

January 1944. The second semester is beginning at the Petit Collège in Fontainebleau. Julien Quentin, 12 years old, is a natural leader for his classmates. As the semester opens, Father John, the headmaster, brings three new students to the school. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is Julien’s classmate. He vexes but also intrigues Julien and a bond of friendship is created between them. Julien ends up understanding the secrecy of his friend, his name is not Bonnet but Kippelstein, it is Jewish. A cold morning of January, following a denunciation, Gestapo makes an interruption in the college. Jeans father, a Resistance worker and the three Jewish children are taken along.

Fri 19th Sept 2008 - View Calender
Zazie dans le Metro, (Zazie in the metro), 1960 / 89 min

Twelve-year-old Zazie has to spend the weekend with her uncle Gabriel, in Paris, so that her mother can be with her lover. Zazie’s unique obsession is to take a ride on the metro. Unfortunately it is on strike… Such is the beginning of this wild farce based on Raymond Queneau’s masterpiece.

LOUIS MALLE – The Filmmaker

Louis Malle created films that explored life and its meaning, he was a multisfaceted creator : director, writer, producer and documentary film maker… “Everyone has an idea about whatever one wants to do. There always exists a gap between this idea embellished with imagination and the final shape of what is achieved. It is to narrow down this gap that one has to strive endlessly”. These words of Louis Malle somewhat sum up his professional life. His first feature film, Lift to the Gallows (1957), that won the Critics’ Award, was a prophetic start to a remarkable career of a filmmaker for nearly 40 years. The various dimensions accorded by Louis Malle to an ordinary suspense thriller emphasized his quest for exploring the possibilities of cinematographic art. Between awards and admirations on the one hand and scandals and controversies on the other, Louis Malle never hesitated to experiment with different genres. Even when his views were harshly criticized – moralistically as in The Lovers or The Murmur of the Heart, or politically as in Lacombe Lucien – his technical finesse was never questioned.
The eight-part documentary on India (1968), edited from 37 hours of footage that was shot, landed him in an unfortunate and avoidable controversy at that time, though today it is widely appreciated for its sincerity, restraint and aesthetic charm. If his “European point of view” of American life marked his half a dozen films made in America over 12 years of his stay there, back in France in 1987, his touching and award-winning film on the effects of war crimes on a Jewish adolescent (Good-bye Children) pulsated with a typically French sensitivity. The Lifetime Achievement Award for Louis Malle from the British Academy, five years before his death, was truly well-deserved.” —- V.SRIRAM*

*V.SRIRAM is a writer, translator and specialist of French cinema. He has translated some important contemporary French authors into Tamil directly from French since 1980.