| 2020 – 99′ – Drama  –
Written and directed by Yanina Benguigui.
Starring Isabelle Adjani, Rachida Brakni, Maïwenn, Hafsia Herzi.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films US release|

Watch the trailer

For thirty years, French-Algerian sisters Zorah, Nohra and Djamila have been living in the hope of finding their brother Rheda, abducted by their father, and hidden in newly decolonised Algeria.
Their relationship is shaken when Zorah, the eldest sister, decides to write a play based on the traumatizing events of their childhood that haunted them their whole life. But when they learn that their father is dying, the three sisters decide to go to Algeria to seize their last opportunity to have him reveal where their brother is. When the past catches up, the three sisters have no choice but to put their differences aside.

Opening on 1/28

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| 2021 – 101′ – Drama  –
Written and directed by Olivier Peyron.
Starring Karine Viard, Stéphane Bak, Yuri Narita.
In French with English subtitles.
North American Premiere Cinemania Film Festival 2021
A Distrib Films US release|

Watch the trailer

March 11, 2011. The biggest tsunami Japan has ever experienced triggers the Fukushima disaster.
Risks are being downplayed but the foreign community in Tokyo is terrified by this tragic event and the fact that no one is capable of assessing its scope. Among them, Alexandra, a French executive newly arrived from Hong Kong to work in a bank, has to face this nuclear crisis. Torn apart between following the company’s instructions and going back to her husband and children who are still in Hong Kong, she will find herself defending honor and given word, despite the pervading terror and chaos.

Watch now

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| 2020 – 72′ – Animation, Historical  –
Written and directed by Aurel.
In French and Spanish with English subtitles.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival
Cesar Awards 2021: Winner Best Animated Film
A Distrib Films US release|

Watch the trailer

February 1939. Spanish republicans are fleeing Franco’s dictatorship to France. The French government built concentration camps, confining the refugees, where they barely have access to hygiene, water and food. In one of these camps, separated by barbed wire, two men will become friends. One is a guard, the other is Josep Bartoli (Barcelona 1910 – NYC 1995), an illustrator who fights against Franco’s regime.

Watch now

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| 2021 – 133′ – Comedy,Drama  –
Written by Bruno Dumont.
Directed by Bruno Dumont.
Starring Léa Seydoux (France de Meurs), Blanche Gardin (Lou), Benjamin Biolay (Fred de Meurs), Emanuele Arioli (Charles Castro), Juliane Köhler (Mme Arpel), Gaëtan Amiel (Joseph de Moeurs), Jawad Zemmar (Baptiste)
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival 2021, COLCOA French Film Festival 2021
In French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release|

Léa Seydoux brilliantly holds the center of Bruno Dumont’s unexpected, unsettling new film, which starts out as a satire of the contemporary news media before steadily spiraling out into something richer and darker. Never one to shy away from provoking his viewers, Dumont (The Life of Jesus, NYFF35) casts Seydoux as France de Meurs, a seemingly unflappable superstar TV journalist whose career, homelife, and psychological stability are shaken after she carelessly drives into a young delivery man on a busy Paris street. This accident triggers a series of self-reckonings, as well as a strange romance that proves impossible to shake. A film that teases at redemption while refusing to grant absolution, France is tragicomic and deliciously ambivalent—a very 21st-century treatment of the difficulty of maintaining identity in a corrosive culture.

Watch now

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The post Colcoa 25 lineup announced appeared first on Colcoa French Film Festival in Hollywood.

| 2016 – 120′ – Drama  –
Written by Emmanuelle Bercot.
Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot, Marcia Romano.
Starring Sara Forestier, Rod Paradot, Catherine Deneuve, Benoît Magimel
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival. Winner 2 Cesar Awards: Best Promising Actor (Rod Paradot), Best Supporting Actor (Benoît Magimel)
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

Abandoned by his mother (Sara Forestier) at the age of 6, Malony (Rod Paradot) is constantly in and out of juvenile court. An adoptive family grows around this young delinquent: Florence (Catherine Deneuve), a children’s magistrate nearing retirement, and Yann (Benoît Magimel), a caseworker and himself the survivor of a very difficult childhood. Together they follow the boy’s journey and try unfailingly to save him. Then Malony is sent to a stricter educational center, where he meets Tess (Diane Rouxel), a very special young girl who will show him that there are reasons for hope.

Watch now

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| 2013 – 114′ – Drama / Thriller –
Written by Costa Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg, Karim Boukercha.
Directed by Costa Gavras.
Starring Gad Elmaleh, Gabriel Byrne, Natacha Régnier, Céline Sallette.
Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

From legendary Academy Award®-winning writer/director Costa-Gavras (Missing, Z) comes Capital, a fast-paced, darkly comic, suspenseful drama set in the high stakes world of global finance.When the CEO of France’s Phenix Bank collapses on the golf course, Machiavellian young executive Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh, Midnight in Paris) is crowned as his replacement. A whirlwind of ruthless ambition, power struggles, greed and deception ensues as Tourneuil’s brutal ascent is jeopardized by a hostile takeover attempt from a large American hedge fund led by Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne, Vikings, In Treatment), erotic distractions from international supermodel Nassim (Liya Kebede), and adversaries with an agenda for destruction. Capital is a pointed commentary on how the Darwinian world of contemporary capitalism plays itself out across the global financial stage. Based on the book Le Capital by Stéphane Osmont, the film is directed by Costa-Gavras and written by Costa-Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg and Karim Boukercha. The film also stars Natacha Regnier and Celine Sallette.

Watch now

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| 2018 – 108′ – Drama / Romance –
Written by François Ozon
Directed by François Ozon
Starring Marine Vacth, Jérémie Renier, Jacqueline Bisset, Dominique Reymond.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

Crafting a deliriously cinematic web of suspense, shock, eroticism, and power dynamics, writer/director François Ozon (Swimming Pool) returns to master the thriller genre with Double Lover. In the new film, Ozon reunites with two actors whom he previously directed in breakout roles, Marine Vacth (Young & Beautiful) and Jérémie Renier (Criminal Lovers), now helming them in an intense exploration of a woman venturing into dangerous romance. Chloé, who works as a guard at a museum in Paris, seeks to shore up her resiliency and enters psychoanalysis. In Paul Meyer, the sensitive patient finds a caring psychiatrist who helps her overcome bouts with depression. Following the end of the treatment, both realize that they have fallen in love. A new chapter begins for Chloé when she and Paul move in together…yet Chloé soon comes to believe that Paul is keeping a secret. She impulsively visits another psychiatrist, Louis Delord. Spiraling emotional and sexual stakes will push all three of them to extremes, forcing Chloé to take action in order to solve a mystery and save herself.

Watch now

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| 2013 – 105′ – Action / Thriller –
Written by Laurent Turner, Luc Bossi.
Directed by Eric Valette.
Starring Albert Dupontel, Alice Taglioni, Stéphane Debac, Sergi López, Natacha Régnier
Official Selection Rome International Film Festival, Cinemania French Film Festival.
In French with English subtitles.
A Cohen Media Group release.|

Franck Adrien (Albert Dupontel), a bank robber convicted of a heist and sentenced to six months in prison, shares a cell with seemingly weak Jean Louis Morel. But once Morel gets released from behind bars, Adrien learns that Morel is really a sadistic serial killer who now knows private details about Adrien’s life. Adrien must break out of prison and catch Morel before he gets to Adrien’s family…and before France’s elite police detectives hunt Adrien down.

Watch now

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Documentaries to be Included in the Festival’s Program this Year Take on Such Diverse Subject Matter as the Environment, Extinction, Transgender Inclusion, Holocaust Revelations and More 

Los Angeles, California – September 8, 2021 – Climate change, immigration, transgender inclusion, holocaust revelations, centenary celebration …. These and many more contemporary and historical topics are explored in the diverse and exclusive documentary line up scheduled to premiere at the 25th Annual COLCOA French Film & Series Festival. Six feature documentary films and one TV documentary make up the non-fiction part of the program that will be on offer when COLCOA comes to the DGA Theaters as a live event November 1-7. These films will also be eligible for the 2021 COLCOA Best Documentary Award. The full line-up of the 25th edition will be announced on October 5.

“Documentary films have grown in prominence in France in the past few years, with more than a hundred fifty released in theaters in 2019 and strong sales worldwide. We are showing seven of the most innovative documentaries coming out of France today that cover the gamut of style, approach, and artistic vision” said Anouchka van Riel, Deputy Director.

The film documentaries chosen for premiere exhibition at COLCOA include:

Above Water / Marcher sur L’eau (2021 – North American Premiere) – Fourteen-year-old Houlaye lives in Tatiste, Niger and travels several kilometers every day to fetch water. The village got together to obtain construction of a well. This is the promise of a new life for these men and women who have literally been walking on water since birth. Written and directed by Aïssa Maïga. Presented in association with Orange Studio.

Birds of America (2021 – North American Premiere) – At the beginning of the 19th century, the discovery of the wide-open spaces of the United States and its incredible wildlife was key in the political development of the country. Intent on painting all the birds of America, John-James Audubon became a central figure of America’s national identity. But as these birds started disappearing with the dawn of the industrial age, so did the original American dream. In this “river movie” shot along the banks of the Mississippi, political, environmental and human rights issues are interwoven with the tales, myths and ghosts of these now extinct birds. Written and directed by Jacques Loeuille. Presented in Association with MK2 Films.

From Where They Stood / A Pas Aveugles (2021 – North American Premiere) – A handful of prisoners in WWII camps risked their lives to take clandestine photographs and document the hell the Nazis were hiding from the world. In the vestiges of the camps, director Christophe Cognet retraces the footsteps of these courageous men and women in a quest to unearth the circumstances and the stories behind their photographs, composing as such an archeology of images as acts of defiance. Presented in Association with U.S. distributor Greenwich Entertainment.

Gallant Indies / Indes Galantes (2021 – North American Premiere) – This film documents a first for 30 break, hip hop, krumping and voguing dancers; a first for director Clément Cogitore and choreographer Bintou Dembélé; and a first for the Opéra de Paris. By creating a dialogue between urban dance and lyrical song, together they reinvent Rameau’s baroque masterpiece, Les Indes Galantes. From rehearsals to public performances, it is a human adventure and a meeting with the political issues we follow. Can a new generation of artists take the Bastille today? Written and directed by Philippe Béziat. Presented in association with Pyramide International.

Jane By Charlotte (2021 – West Coast Premiere). The spare, delicate portrait of a fascinating, now-75-year-old mother (singer Jane Birkin) by a daughter (actor/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg), who clearly cherishes her. A very frank portrayal of two very human, insecure, talented women, as they take stock of both the joys and the tragedies they have shared over the years. Presented in association with U.S. distributor Utopia.

Little Girl / Petite Fille (2021 – Special Presentation COLCOA Awards) – Seven-year-old Sasha has always known she was a little girl, even though she was born a boy. 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 lads a constant battle to make her difference understood and accepted. Written and directed by Sebastien Lifshitz. Presented in association with U.S. distributor Music Box Films.

Television documentary set to premiere at COLCOA:

All About Yves Montand / Montand est a nous (2021 – North American Premiere). Celebrating the centenary of iconic singer-actor-public figure Yves Montand, the film is a touching homage by writer/director Yves Jeuland full of restored and unpublished archives, concerts and film extracts. It plunges us into a 50-year career of probably the most popular after-war French artist in the world. The film was part of the Official Selection of the last Cannes Film Festival. Written and directed by Yves Jeuland. Presented in association with Zelig Films.

About COLCOA

Now one of the oldest and most well-established Film Festivals in Hollywood, COLCOA, has become a prestigious and widely publicized event. It offers a unique platform to promote French films and series at the beginning of the Awards Season in Hollywood. Annually, the festival brings the highest-caliber French filmmakers and talent to Los Angeles for red carpet premieres, numerous panels and screenings, as well as the opportunity for high-profile collaborations between French and American professionals. In addition, more than 20,000 audience members – including journalists, industry professionals, the general public and students – attend the festival annually.

COLCOA French Film Festival was created and is produced by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a unique collaboration between the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the Motion Picture Association (MPA), France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) and the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW). COLCOA is also supported by Unifrance, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France’s Society of Authors, Directors and Producers (l’ARP), by TVFI, Air Tahiti Nui, Bank of the West/BNP Paribas, TV5 Monde/Sling and Variety. The COLCOA Education Program is supported by ELMA.

For additional information visit: www.colcoa.org 

Media Contact: 

In Los Angeles:
Patricia Frith Marketing
310 490-2368
pfmarketing@me.com

In Paris:
Vanessa Jerrom
+ (33) 6 14 83 88 82
vanessajerrom@orange.fr

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