Highlights from Sydney’s French Film Festival

By Pierre Terraz

The 31st edition of the Alliance Française French Film Festival acts as a window into contemporary France, its culture and its social issues.

Due to COVID-19 the festival has been postponed, keep an eye out on the Sydney French Film Festival website for alternative dates. 

While the French writer Eric Neuhoff declared the golden age of French films dead in his pamphleteering essay "Dear French cinema" a few months ago, this does not apply in Australia. Representing the largest festival dedicated to French movies in the world, the festival has definitely cemented its place in the hearts of Australians. The eclectic programming of this year's festival should sustain the link between the French seventh art and its audience from Australia. Read on to find out about the must-see works.

Au nom de la terre by Edouard Bergeon

This movie tells the story of Pierre (portrayed in a superb performance by Guillaume Canet), who returns from Wyoming in the United States to the Mayenne district of France in the late 70’s to take over his imperious father’s farm. Shortly after the company is put under enormous pressure, and the picture-perfect family begins to unravel.

Au nom de la terre is the first film of Edouard Bergeon, who was originally a journalist. The story is deeply personal as it is inspired by his own childhood and is dedicated to his parents (his father committed suicide because of the extreme overload of work in the French farming community). This hard-hitting film denounces a system that underpays farmers, which leads to two suicides a day in rural France. Rural drama seems to have become  established as a new genre with many directors following the artistic and activist movement of Bergeon.

Mes jours de gloire by Antoine de Bary

Since his debut in 2009, Vincent Lacoste has become one of France’s most in-demand young stars. In this very Parisian film, he embodies to perfection the role of Adrien, the definition of an anti-hero: self absorbed, unemployed and sponging shamelessly off his parents. The boy also smokes a lot. A promising career as a child actor has led to nothing since, and now Adrien gradually sinks into a metaphysical questioning as he bounces from audition to audition with no success. The performance of Noée Abita as the young Léa is also to be applauded as she beautifully personifies a disillusioned childhood.

Here again the film is about a French depression, but this one is of a completely different kind. It is an urban drama dealing with a dislocated and unhappy Parisian youth. The individuals are lost in the middle of the crowd. Gestures of tenderness between them are numerous in an attempt to reconnect but  very few work. Most of them are grotesque and in the end the spectator doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Just like Adrien. 

This year’s French film festival program encapsulates timely issues in French society. From rural French communities to Parisian youth, these films provide diverse insight into the human experience.