French Films and Directors at IFFR 2009

38th International Film Festival Rotterdam
January 21 – February 1, 2009


PRESS RELEASE UNIFRANCE, January 12, 2009

French Films and Directors at IFFR 2009

With a broad selection of its most remarkable filmmakers and talented takeover, French cinema will come out in force at the 39th Rotterdam Film Festival. Noteworthy documentaries and inspired innovative fictional languages are at the core of this year’s French selection. The Festival will be honored by the attendance of several masters of world cinema joined by numerous representatives of the variety of emerging French directors, amongst which a highly expected production in the VPRO Tiger awards competition.

After having credited him with the 2005 opening film “10ème chambre, instants d’audience”, the 2009 IFFR will pay a tribute to major French filmmaker and documentarist RAYMOND DEPARDON, screening his triptych over French peasant’s life: PROFILS PAYSANS: L’APPROCHE (2001), PROFILS PAYSANS: LE QUOTIDIEN (2005) and box office topper LA VIE MODERNE, recently awarded the prix Louis Delluc for the best 2008 French movie.

The 2009 Festival programme will be crowned by a retrospective of the complete works by of a major figure of Polish and international cinema, JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI, including his latest French produced opus, FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANA. This dark and surrealist tale marks the return of the multifaceted polish artist after 17 years of cinematographic silence.

The new Spectrum programme section will honour other Maestro’s of French cinema: Rotterdam’s regular CLAIRE DENIS will attend the festival together with her remarkable comedian ALEX DESCAS to present last Venice Mostra’s acclaimed 35 RHUMS, a delicate and vibrant capture of love and tenderness in an ordinary father-daughter relationship. Two years after les “Anges exterminateurs”, the atypical JEAN-CLAUDE BRISSEAU will make his comeback to Rotterdam with A L’AVENTURE, an initiatory quest carrying on with the director’s bold reflections on women sexuality mysteries. Festival’s praised director RAOUL RUIZ will top the bill with his new masterpiece NUCINGEN HAUS, a surreal narrative about ghosts, memory and territorial disputes in an eerie old mansion, whereas PHILIPPE GARREL’s LA FRONTIERE DE L’AUBE, official competition entry in Cannes 2009, rounds up this schedule with his passionate and mad love story starring LOUIS GARREL and LAURA SMET.

The attractive encounter of young French filmmakers with worldwide stars is at the core of two French productions to be screened in Rotterdam: drawing a new dimension in the documentary/fiction fusion, JE VEUX VOIR, by KHALIL JOREIGE and JOANA HADJITHOMAS, leads French icon CATHERINE DENEUVE together with well-known Lebanese artist/actor RABIH MROUÉ on a day trip from Beirut to the ruins of south Lebanon; also threading a thin line between fact and fiction, MABROUK EL MECHRI feature debut’s JCVD, casts the 80’s action star JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME to play is own life role.

As each year, the new generation of French filmmakers will be attending to meet Rotterdam’s public and professionals with challenging and bright productions led by JULIETTE GARCIAS’ SOIS SAGE, first promising feature lining up as a European premiere in the 2009 VPRO Tiger awards competition.

The Spectrum programme section also features some confirmed new talents of French cinema: after “Aaltra” - competing for the 2004 Tiger Awards -, the radically independent artists GUSTAVE KERVERN and BENOÌT DELEPINE pursue harsh denouncement of the destructive impact of globalisation with LOUISE-MICHEL, a blowing comedy paying homage to a historical anarchist figure of the same name, starring YOLANDE MOREAU and BOULI LANNERS; JEAN-CHARLES FITOUSSI, former assistant of the Straub couple, brings up his latest three acts opus JE NE SUIS PAS MORTE, where Alix, created by the great William Stein, comes into being at the age of twenty-seven and sets off in pursuit of the only thing she is supposed to be unable to experience: (damned) love ; With NULLE PART TERRE PROMISE, a tale of three characters crossing today’s Europe, each in quest of their promised land, EMMANUEL FINKIEL brings up a very acute depiction of contemporary nomadic life. Finally, L’ABSENCE by French-Guinean MAMA KEÏTA points out, in a family story, the desertion of the African elites.

Other emerging French directors will be in Rotterdam to present they work selected in the Bright future programme section: SAMUEL COLLARDEY’s L’APPRENTI, crowned among others by the 2008 Louis Delluc prize for best first film, following the tracks of Mathieu, 15 years, apprentice in a isolated farm; SOUAD EL-BOUHATI with her first film FRANÇAISE, casting rising star HAFSIA HERZI, recently awarded best actress in Dubai Festival for her role of a rebel young girl with an hybrid sense of identity, longing for her home country – France - , after her parents had taken the whole family back to their native Morocco; PHILIPPE FERNANDEZ and PHILIPPE VINOLO with LÉGER TREMBLEMENT DU PAYSAGE, a “filmosophy” essay set up in a small human community living through the first moments of the conquest of space and, last but not least, ANDRÉA SANTANA and JEAN-PIERRE DURET with their critic’s praised documentary PUISQUE NOUS SOMMES NÉS, relating the identity and future questioning of two Brazilian kids.



French guests at IFFR 2009 and their attendance dates, subject to change

Juliette Garcia, Director SOIS SAGE 22 – 27 January

Jean-Claude Brisseau, Director, A L’AVENTURE 23 – 26 January

Raoul Ruiz, Director NUCINGEN HAUS 23 – 26 January

Andrea Santana, Director PUISQUE NOUS SOMMES NES 24 – 27 January

Jean-Pierre Duret, Director PUISQUE NOUS SOMMES NES 24 – 27 January

Jean-Charles Fitoussi, Director JE NE SUIS PAS MORTE 25 – 28 January

Emmanuel Finkiel, Director NULLE PART TERRE PROMISE 25 – 27 January

Claire Denis, Director 35 RHUMS 26 – 30 January

Alex Descas, Actor 35 RHUMS 26 – 30 January

Philippe Fernandez, Director,
LEGER TREMBLEMENT DU PAYSAGE 30 January– 1st February

Khalil Joreige, Director JE VEUX VOIR 27 – 29 January

Joana Hadjithomas, Director JE VEUX VOIR 27 – 28 January

Mama Keïta, Director L’ABSENCE 24 – 27 January

Gustave Kervern, Director LOUISE-MICHEL Dates to be confirmed






For further information, please contact the UNIFRANCE Press Attachée at Rotterdam:
Yasmin MEICHTRY (starting Tuesday 20th January)
at the Doelen (Press Office)
Phone +31 (0)6 292 37 000, email : [email protected]

And Antoine KHALIFE, Head of Festivals and Artists Department, UNIFRANCE:
Office phone: +33(0) 1 47 53 27 16
Cell: +33(0)6 71 63 36 21
Office fax: +33 (0)1 45 50 36 57
Email: [email protected]