Féroce et Formidable: A Francophone Film Festival
Appalachian State University’s Belk Library and Information Commons and the Department of English, with support from the Albertine Cinémathèque Festival Grant, is hosting “Féroce et Formidable: A Francophone Film Festival” on seven Tuesdays throughout the 2022-2023 school year.
Screenings
All screenings will be held at 6:30pm at the Greenbriar Theatre on the second floor of the Plemmons Student Union, and will include program notes, guest speakers, and other surprises along with the films. Admission is free and open to the general public. No ticket is required. For a disability accommodation, visit odr.appstate.edu.
Below are specific date and descriptions for all the films:
Tuesday, September 6, 2022:
Happening (L’Evénement, Audrey Diwan, 2021)
I got knocked up like a poor girl. Anne is a young university student who gets pregnant, and decides to seek an abortion so she can finish school and escape the limitations of her working-class family. But in early-1960s France, abortion is illegal and Anne risks going to prison...
Tuesday, September 20, 2022:
Stolen Kisses (Baisers Volés, François Truffaut, France, 1968)
When young, directionless Antoine Doniel (played by French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud) is dishonorably discharged from the army, he returns to Paris and tries out a number of odd jobs while beginning a comedic quest for the love of his life.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022:
Lingui, The Sacred Bonds (Lingui, Les liens sacrés, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, France / Chad, 2022)
On the outskirts of N’djamena in Chad, single mother Amina lives with her teenage daughter Maria. But Amina’s already fragile world collapses when she discovers Maria is pregnant with an unwanted child, in a country where abortion is prohibited by both religion and law.
Tuesday, November 15, 2022:
Josep (Aurel and Aurélien Froment, France / Spain, 2020)
February, 1939. Spanish Republicans are fleeing to France to escape Franco’s dictatorship, even as the French government builds internment camps to imprison the refugees. In one of these camps, an unusual friendship develops between a French guard and a freedom-fighting artist.
Tuesday, January 31, 2023:
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven, France, 2021)
In the late 17th century, with plague ravaging the land, Benedetta Carlini joins the convent in Pescia, Tuscany, as a novice nun. Capable from an early age of performing miracles, Benedetta’s impact on life in the convent is immediate, irreverent, and scandalous.
Tuesday, February 21, 2023:
The Red Circle (Le cercle rouge, Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1970)
An aristocratic thief, a fugitive and an alcoholic ex-cop plan to carry out the ultimate robbery, and become locked in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with an inscrutable but dedicated police inspector. The heist scene is a tour de force that plays out in almost complete silence.
Tuesday, March 21, 2023:
Little Girl (Petite Fille, Sébastien Lifshitz, France, 2020)
Seven-year-old Sasha has always known she was a little girl. As society fails to treat her like the other children her age—in her daily life at school, dance lessons, or birthday parties—her supportive family fights to make her difference understood and accepted.
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