AFTER 10
From Tuesday, April 22 to Saturday, April 26, there is a good reason to stay late at COLCOA and discover new horizons with an eclectic program of French productions scheduled after 10 pm. All films are screened in the TRUFFAUT theater.
(Please note: After 10 schedule is not compatible with screenings in RENOIR theater at 8:30 pm except on Saturday night. Please buy or reserve tickets accordingly).
Tuesday, April 22 – 10:30 pm
Los Angeles Premiere
Set far away from postcard Paris, Paulette, co-written and directed by Jérôme Enrico, is a bad-mannered comic stomp through the seedy edges of the city. Paulette is down on her luck. She might have retired in some dignity if her deceased alcoholic husband hadn’t squandered the family brasserie away. Now her golden years are spent nursing welfare checks in a bare housing project apartment. This is no pity party, however, and Paulette is no pushover. When she notices that the only people doing well in the neighborhood are the marijuana dealers, she decides to get in on the act. But when the local drug lords make it clear they don’t appreciate the competition, Paulette is forced to cook up another strategy. Bernadette Lafont manages the improbable feat of playing a misanthropic, xenophobic, “breaking-bad” grandma who somehow manages to steal your heart.
Wednesday, April 23 – 10:00 pm
A STRANGE COURSE OF EVENTS (Le Cours étrange des choses)
North American Premiere • World Cinema Produced by France Series.
This intimate, easygoing French-Israeli co-production, co-written and directed by Raphaël Nadjari, charts a solitary man’s course back to life after a difficult divorce. Needing a break from his job working the night shift admissions desk at a hospital, thirty-something Shaul heads for the coastal town of Haifa, where his father Shimon lives. The two men have been estranged since the death of Shaul’s mother many years earlier, and the mutual resentments have piled up. But resolving old grudges is put on hold while Shaul first comes to terms with Bati, Shimon’s New Age girlfriend. Before long, Shaul’s grumpy exterior is being put to the test with a battery of therapeutic oils, healing stones, and yoga. But his self-imposed isolation is dealt a real body blow when his young daughter turns up for a visit.
Thursday, April 24 – 10:15 pm
West Coast Premiere
Sergeant Denis Quillard is a man who prefers to keep his feet on the ground. Literally. After a lightning ambush leaves his entire patrol gunned down, he is left alone in the middle of the desert with a truckload of Afghan heroin. Oh, and one other thing: he is also standing on an old Russian era double-trigger landmine. As in, one move and you are dead. With no means to diffuse the situation, the heroic, stoic Quillard, played with sympathy by Pascal Elbé (Turk’s Head – COLCOA 2010), can do little but hope that some passerby will come to his aid before the Taliban soldiers arrive. In this first film co-written and directed by Yannick Saillet, the intensity of Buried meets the suspense of the classic Clouzot film The Wages of Fear in this edge-of-your-seat tale of survival and human resilience in a war zone.
Friday, April 25 – 10:15 pm
LOVE IS A PERFECT CRIME (L’Amour est un crime parfait)
West Coast Premiere • Film Noir Series
An attractive student has gone missing after spending the night with Marc, a philandering professor at the University of Lausanne. Marc’s reputation precedes him, and as expected, the school’s resident Lothario is soon under suspicion by the authorities. Less expected, however, is the appearance of the missing student’s beautiful stepmother Anna, poking around for clues. Marc, a man at the mercy of his own appetites, decides to make her his next conquest. Adapted from Incidences by Philippe Dijan, whose other novels inspired the films Betty Blue and Unforgivable, this chilly thriller, co-written and co-directed by Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larieu, uses its Swiss Alps setting to maximum effect. Mathieu Almaric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Quantum of Solace) is commanding as the cigarette and sex addicted lit teacher with a sister hidden amongst the skeletons in his closet.
Saturday, April 26 – 10:20 pm
JACKY IN THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN (Jacky au royaume des filles)
North American Premiere • French NewWave 2.0 Series
Imagine a world where women call the shots, a world where women fight the wars, run the government, have the illustrious careers, and hold all the important positions of power. Now imagine being a man in that world. That man is 20 year old Jacky, and that fabled world is the Republic of Bubunne, a totalitarian matriarchy where men, wearing chadors and bejeweled dog collars, are relegated to lives of domestic servitude. Like all members of Bubunne’s downtrodden sex, Jacky dreams of marrying up. All the way up. He’s got his sights set on the Colonel, daughter of the supreme leader. But if he is ever going to make beautiful daughters with her, he first has to finagle his way into the Presidential Ball. With a memorable cameo by The Artist filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius playing a prostitute/rebel commander, this brilliant, incisive political satire from writer/director Riad Sattouf, unspools like a fairytale gone cruelly and hilariously berserk.
