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Tuesday, August 4, 2009
San Joaquin Film Society announces French Cinema Day, August 30, 2009, with Spotlight Film "The Beaches of Agnés" César Award Winner
San Joaquin Film Society announces French Cinema Day, August 30, 2009, with Spotlight Film "The Beaches of Agnés" César Award Winner
Published: Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Stockton, California, USA - The San Joaquin Film Society (SJFS), the benchmark cinema organization of California's Central Valley, celebrates an illustrious 2009 year by kicking-off its Autumn Season with French Cinema Day (FCD): Set to take place Sunday, August 30, 2009 from 1:00PM to 9:00PM, at the Stockton Empire Theatre (1825 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, CA 95204).
Curated and presented by SJFS as part of its Global Cinema Series, FCD 2009 will feature new, celebrated, and award-winning works from French and international filmmakers sharing contemporary experiences, historical events, insightful perspectives and innovative creations.
The first two films announced:
• "The Beaches of Agnés" directed by Agnes Varda (7:30PM)
• "A Secret" directed by Claude Miller (3:00PM)
"A Secret" is a majestic and captivating post-Holocaust drama, adapted from a novel by Philippe Grimbert. About a boy who unearths a shocking family secret, the film received multiple 2008 César Award nominations and success at the French box office.
Selected as the Spotlight Film will be the 2009 César Award (French Academy Award) Winner "The Beaches of Agnés" - a riveting, vibrant, kaleidoscopic and supremely-intelligent self-portrait directed by French New Wave veteran Agnes Varda.
Synopses for both films are below. Yet to be announced are the selected films of two shorts programs of short-length narratives and animations.
For film line-up, showtimes, and information: www.sjiff.org/fcd09
For advance tickets and day pass: www.sjiff.org/tickets
Advance tickets go on sale online on or before August 7, 2009. $7-$12.
SYNOPSIS OF "THE BEACHES OF AGNES"
"A reflection on art, life and the movies, "The Beaches of Agnes" is a magnificent new film from the great Agnes Varda, director of Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I, a richly cinematic self portrait that touches on everything from the feminist movement and the Black Panthers to the films of husband Jacques Demy and the birth of the French New Wave.
When one thinks of the major figures of postwar cinema, the name Agnès Varda immediately springs to mind. Her body of work in both fiction and documentary is defined by a wealth of innovation and imagination. Irrepressible and enquiring, she is a force of nature, and even at eighty shows no signs of slowing down. Her new film is a reminder that there are few artists capable of such eloquence in cinema.
Varda takes beaches as her point of departure. Though she was not born near the ocean, she would travel to the seaside every Easter and summer during her childhood, and her memories of these trips act as a springboard for the film's meditation on her early life. She recalls her wartime exile to the coastal village of Sète as a period of endless fun and life jackets. While a young adult, Varda began her career as a photographer before raising a family with her husband, Jacques Demy (best known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and eventually turning to filmmaking. Returning to Sète over a decade after the end of the war, she used the locale and its fishermen as the backdrop for her remarkable first feature film, La Pointe Courte.
Varda weaves photographs, vintage footage, film clips, and present-day sequences into a memorable voyage through her life, during which she confronts the joy of creation and the pain of personal loss, death and aging. It is a singular trip played out against the exciting context of the postwar explosion of cultural expression in France. She knew everyone: her colleagues in the French New Wave, the Black Panthers in California and even Jim Morrison, who would visit when in Paris. Idiosyncratic, engaging and deeply moving, The Beaches of Agnes is a journey through an extraordinary artistic life." (Distributor: The Cinema Guild)
SYNOPSIS OF "A SECRET"
Cast Members: Cecile de France, Patrick Bruel, Ludivine Sagnier, Julie Depardieu, Mathieu Amalric.
"'A Secret' follows the saga of a Jewish family in post-World War II Paris. François, a solitary, imaginative child, invents for himself a brother as well as the story of his parents’ past. But on his fifteenth birthday, he discovers a dark family secret that ties his family’s history to the Holocaust and shatters his illusions forever. Before the war, his father, Maxime, was married to Hannah when he fell madly in love with Francois’s mother, Tania. As a young Jewish couple living in Nazi-occupied France, Maxime and Tania were compelled to make difficult choices to survive the war while Hannah (Sagnier) would make a decision that would change her life and that of her family forever."
Winner of the American Grand Prize at the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival and Official Selection of 2008 Rendez-vous with French Cinema, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York City. (Distributor: Strand Releasing)
ABOUT THE SAN JOAQUIN FILM SOCIETY
The San Joaquin Film Society, Inc. (SJFS), home of the San Joaquin International Film Festival (SJIFF), celebrates cinema arts, multi-cultural appreciation, and global outreach through year-round productions of festivals, films, and educational programs. For 2009, with a home base in Stockton, California, the Society launched an ambitious and exhilarating year-round programme of events: The flagship 2nd San Joaquin International Film Festival (May 14 to 23), the 1st San Joaquin Children's Film Festival (January 16 to 18), Cinema Italia Series (February 16 to 28), Jewish Cinema Day (July 19), French Cinema Day (August), Latino Cinema Day (November 15), the 1st California International Documentary Film Festival (October 2 to 4), the Cinema Room (March-May), social events and galas, special screenings, workshops for filmmakers, a new membership program, and educational programming. SJFS is dedicated to celebrating the artistry, diversity, and power of filmmaking; and to bringing the world of cinema to the culturally-rich Central Valley audiences.
Official Website: www.sjiff.org
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CONTACT
Sophoan Sorn
Email: ssorn@sjiff.org
Phone: (209) 423 4719
Official Website: www.sjiff.org
For still images, visit www.sjiff.org/filmstills.html
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THE BEACHES OF AGNES
(Distributor: Cinema Guild)
• IMAGE ONE
• IMAGE TWO
• IMAGE THREE
A SECRET
(Distributor: Strand Releasing)
• IMAGE ONE
• IMAGE TWO
STILL IMAGES ARE FOR AUTHORIZED AND OFFICIAL PRESS AND MEDIA USAGE ONLY
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