The Father of My Children
(Le Pere De Mes Enfants)

(2009)

 Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Rated: not rated
Run time: 112 minutes
Language: French with English subtitles

The movie centers on the travails of a debt-ridden producer and chronicles a multitude of indie film woes, from crushing bank loans to temperamental directors.

“The film is inspired by the life of Humbert Balsan, a producer who helped me a great deal when I was making my first film”, Hansen- Løve says. “It’s a very realistic representation of the French cinema industry, of that type of [national, independent] cinema.”

Grégoire (Louis-Do De Lencquesaing), a Parisian film producer, has it all — a beautiful wife, three adorable daughters, wealth and a buzzing career. On the surface he seems invincible, maintaining humor and charm as he tirelessly juggles the demands of his production company with his family's needs. But when Grégoire's reserves — both financial and emotional — reach a dramatic breaking point, his family's love and resilience is tested.
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and featured at the Toronto and London Film Festivals, The Father of My Children is an extraordinarily perceptive” new drama from emerging young talent Mia Hansen- Løve, and a deeply moving portrait of family in tumult.

Let It Rain
(Parlez-moi de la pluie)

(2008)

 Director: Agnès Jaoui
Rated: Unrated
Run time: 98 minutes
Language: French with English subtitles

The film is set in a small town in Provence during a rainy August. Following the death of her widowed parent, Agathe Villanova (Agnès Jaoui), comes from Paris to deal with the sale of the home where she and her younger sister were brought up. She is the author of a feminist best-seller attemting to make the leap into politics, and a divorced film-maker Michel (Jean-Pierre Bacri), wants to make a TV documentary about her. Michel is having an affair with Agathe's sister. His collaborator is a young Algerian hotel clerk, (Jamel Debbouze), whose elderly mother has worked for most of her life as a servant with the Villanova family.

The New York Times writes: "The personal is political in the films of Agnès Jaoui, a sort of Gallic Woody Allen whose comedies of manners reveal a sensibility acutely attuned to the tiniest nuances of the mind games people play. Ms. Jaoui’s films may lack Mr. Allen’s comic shtick, quotable one-liners and showy metaphysical angst, but they are precisely calibrated dissections of the pretensions and insecurities of the French chattering class. As critical as she can be of her characters, Ms. Jaoui portrays them with the evenhanded sympathy of a wise therapist who likes her clients despite their annoying foibles."

Man On Wire
(Documentary)

(2008)

 Director: James Marsh
Rated: PG-13
Run time: 94 minutes
Language: English

A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the artistic crime of the century."
On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit, a French wire walker, juggler, and street performer days shy of his 25th birthday, spent 45 minutes walking, dancing, kneeling, and lying on a wire he and friends strung between the rooftops of the Twin Towers. The documentary includes contemporary interviews, archival footage, and recreations to tell the story of his previous walks between towers of Notre Dame and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the details of the night before the walk: getting cable into the towers, hiding from guards, and mounting the wire.

The film competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

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