FAVORITES OF THE MOON /
Les Favoris de la lune

 

North American Premiere (restored version) • Comedy • France, 1984

DCP • 1.66 • Mono • Color • 105 min

 

Directed by: Otar Iosseliani

Written by: Otar Iosseliani, Gérard Brach

Cinematography: Philippe Théaudière

Film Editing: Dominique Belfort

Original Score: Nicolas Zourabichvili

Produced by: Philippe Dussart

Coproduced by: France 3 Cinéma

Cast: Katja Rupé (Claire), Alix de Montaigu (Delphine Laplace)

François Michel (Philippe), Mathieu Amalric (Julien)

International Sales: mk2

U.S. Distributor: Cohen Media Group • Cohenmedia.net

U.S. release: In select theaters in May. On Blu-ray and DVD on August 12, 2014

 

Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 41^st Venice International Film Festival, this absurdist comedy, with its sprawling cast of crooks, thieves, anarchists, prostitutes, chief inspectors, art dealers, and inventors, calls to mind the bustling tapestries of Robert Altman. The story revolves around two objects, a rare set of 18^th-century Limoges china, and a 19^th century aristocratic portrait. As these items are passed, sold, or stolen from one character to another, a giddy rounddance of excess begins to take shape – one which suggests that if history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. Together with co-writer Gérard Brach, whose other co-writing credits include Repulsion and Tess, Otar Iosseliani uses a feather-light touch to expose the futility of class and social order, making a bagatelle of the concerns of rich and poor alike.

 

Georgian-born writer/director Otar Iosseliani’s first feature Falling Leaves (1966) was awarded the FIPRESCI (critic’s) prize at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival. A contemporary of Tarkovsky, he was an established figure in alternative Soviet cinema when his 1976 film Pastorali was shelved for several years and then given only a limited distribution. Hoping to find greater artistic freedom, he came to Paris. Favorites of the Moon was the first of eight features he has made since, including And Then There Was Light (1989), which brought him his second Special Jury Prize at Venice. Master of gentle farce and precise comic timing, Iosseliani is considered by many to be the heir to Jacques Tati. But his films have sharper edges, offering scathing, satirical criticisms of class and economic injustice. He returned to Georgia for his most recent film, Chantrapas, (2010), a semi-autobiographical reflection on his early years as a struggling artist.

 

“Where the British would use satire, this opts for the French form of Tatiesque anarchy and fun. And fun it certainly is.”

- LONDON TIMEOUT

 

“With quaint patience, the director creates a spellbinding drama about the serendipity of life and the evanescence of things.”

- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat INTERNATIONAL SPECTRA FILM

 

“Favorites of the Moon is a provocation. A convincing provocation, which asks us to rethink our class conceptions and biases.”

- Eugenia Ellanskaya OBSKURA