Cinema: curtain raising on the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival

Text by: Sophie Torlotin Follow

2 min

This is the first major event for the 7th art to be held in France at the time of the Covid-19: the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival begins this Friday evening and runs until Tuesday. This meeting traditionally marks the return to French cinema. From commercial comedies to films by authors who come here to be shown in preview. But this year, pandemic obliges, the festival is held in a very particular context. 

Publicity

Compulsory pre-reservation of cinema screenings to avoid queues, a 
mask required in the theaters but also the streets of the city center, no party or crowd bath ... To maintain its edition, the Francophone Film Festival had to adopt strict sanitary measures.

To enforce them, more than 110 police officers and 27 soldiers from Operation Sentinel will be deployed in Angoulême. This will bring a touch of gravity to an ordinarily relaxed date.

The coach, former actor and agent Dominique Besnehard nevertheless succeeds, as every year, in attracting stars: Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, Danny Boon or Kad Merad accompany a promising selection, rich in prestigious previews and films of authors, some benefiting from the Cannes label and present in competition. Other surprise guests, Prime Minister Jean Castex and Minister of Cutures, Roselyne Bachelot.

Covid requires, the festival had to give up highlighting a guest country, it had to be Algeria. Instead, it is an imaginary nation that is featured: the “presipacy” of Groland, of which two citizens, Gustave Kerven and Benoît Delépine, will chair the jury. It is their new film, Erasing the History , which has the honor of the opening of the festival.

► Also to listen :  Erase the history  of Gustave Kerven and Benoît Delépine, the Rendez-vous Culture of RFI

► The festival program

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

• Cinema
• France
• Culture