WORLD CINEMA PRODUCED BY FRANCE SERIES
Each year, several films around the world are developed, produced or co-produced by French producers: COLCOA dedicates an evening to these films to highlight the support of French industry to World Cinema.
Italy and Tunisia are under the spot in 2017 with three anticipated films scheduled on Wednesday, April 26 in the Truffaut Theater. Don’t miss this high profile series at COLCOA and be the first to make the buzz!
Wednesday April 26 - 5:35 pm – Renoir Theater
SWEET DREAMS (Fais de beaux rêves)
Drama • Italy, France • West Coast Premiere
In this intensely earnest memoir, Academy Award Nominee Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) sheds daylight on the gloomy existence of a man unable to grieve over the childhood loss of his mother. Based on the bestselling Italian autobiography by Massimo Gramellini, veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio takes us on a sprawling impressionistic journey beginning in the 1960s. Young Massimo bonds with his mother while dancing the twist, or snuggling on the sofa watching their favorite show Belphégor. These idyllic moments will come to haunt Massimo’s adult life when, at the age of 9, he is told that his mother has died of sudden heart failure. It doesn’t make sense to him, and although Massimo later finds success as a sports journalist, he remains coolly dispassionate and detached, unable to sustain a romantic relationship. After a particularly intense bout of his frequent panic attacks, Massimo seeks help and meets Elisa (Bejo). As a woman, Elisa’s beauty and emotional generosity reminds him of his mother. As a doctor, Elisa encourages him to confront the truth about his mother’s death. Written and directed by Marco Bellocchio.
Wednesday April 26 - 8:00 pm – Truffaut Theater
LIKE CRAZY (Folles de joie)
Drama, comedy • Italy, France • Los Angeles Premiere
Actresses Valerie Bruni Tedeschi and Micaela Ramozzotti are at the height of their games as comically mismatched escapees from a mental institution. The story begins in a stately Tuscan villa converted into a retreat for unstable women. Beatrice (Tedeschi) is an entitled, manically motor-mouthed compulsive liar. Donatella is a withdrawn depressive, deeply damaged by life. As much as Donatella dwells on the past, Beatrice lives for the moment, so when she sees an opportunity to get away from hospital staff, she seizes it, with Donatella in tow. The two hit the road on an outlaw odyssey that includes sexy cars, expensive dinners, fortunetellers, an ex-this and a former-that, and any manner of self-medicating, all without a Euro to scrounge between them. They aim to find happiness, but that turns out to be a tricky thing to nail down. Even a lighthearted jaunt in the Tuscan sun can take you to a deeper, more emotionally resonant destination. Written and directed by Carlo Virzi.
Wednesday, April 26 – 10:20 pm – Truffaut Theater
HEDI (Hedi, un vent de liberté)
Drama • Tunisia, France • Los Angeles Premiere • After 10 series.
Winner of the Best First Feature at 2016’s Berlinale, this sensitive, absorbing drama is set in the historic Islamic city of Kairouan, in contemporary Tunisia. Hedi is a dutiful young man working as a car salesman. Apart from his passion for drawing and comics, Hedi is passively going through the motions of a life that his domineering mother Baya has laid out for him. This includes an impending arranged marriage to the docile, incurious Khedija. Then, on a business trip he meets Rim, an activities coordinator for a resort hotel. Rim is everything Khedija is not: independent, ambitious, worldly, free-spirited. For the first time in his life, Hedi sees a possibility to escape the suffocating dictates of his mother, and to pursue his passions on his own terms. But can he turn his back on deep-seated tradition and family obligation? Like an entire generation of post-revolution Tunisians, Hedi is torn between the old forces of social convention and the heady, seductive pull of liberation. Majd Mastoura won Berlinale’s Silver Bear for his portrayal of the conflicted Hedi. Written and directed by Mohamed Ben Attia.
