French films have featured prominently in the development of cinema throughout the world. The French New Wave of the 1960s and 70s, for example, inspired filmmakers everywhere. Contemporary French filmmakers continue to produce innovative and intriguing movies that explore their chosen genre while also illuminating the social landscape of present-day France.Through group debate, shared deliberations, and scrutiny this course will investigate the theme of family in its many changing forms - nuclear, extended, and reconstituted families; unmarried, remarried, and stepfamilies living in the same home or constituting multiple households. It has many forms but family is one of the essential values on which our society is based. At the same time, family is central to society and law. As Hegel said that "if society is the rule of law, the family is the kingdom of love." Relationships in the family embroil legal rules, but also moral and religious codes, customs, habits and routines. This thematic exploration will give us insight into the changing social, physical and emotional makeup of France whilst also introducing some of today’s best and brightest French filmmakers.
Fatima - directed by Philippe Faucon (2015)
This film is drawn from “Priere a la lune” (“Prayer to the Moon”), a short collection of poems and other writings by Fatima Elayoubi, a North African, who emigrated to France with her husband and gradually taught herself the language. Winner of the 2015 French Academy Award (the César), Fatima, features a Moroccan-born mother raising her two teenage daughters in Lyon. Through her daily life, we see the everyday struggles, tensions and humiliations affecting three very different immigrant women, who strive each in her own way to find a place in the French culture.
The Father of My Children – directed by Mia Hansen Love (2009)
In this film by a brilliant and prolific young director, the father (Gregoire) is torn between the demands of his family and his obsession with his career. His independent film company takes all of his time. During their weekends, his frustrated wife, Sylvia, and his three daughters try to enjoy time together even as the dad compulsively checks in with his partners. Mia Hanson-Løve has created an outstanding, undemonstrative study of a contemporary household.
My Summer in Provence (2014) – directed by Rose Bosch
In her first film, The Round Up, Rose Bosch focused on Jews rounded up by French police during World War II, she now turns her lens on intergenerational conflict and dislocation in the captivating, sun-soaked splendor of Southern France. The bucolic olive farm of their long estranged grandfather is hardly a dream holiday for the grandkids Léa, Adrien and their deaf brother Théo. This is made worse by the their parents’ divorce. Inevitably, friction grows between the tech savvy city kids and their cantankerous grandad as the generations clash over manners, morals and culture.in this this funny and touching film.
Floride (2015)
Set in the charming lakeside city of Annecy, a retired paper-factory manager Claude Lherminier (played by the acclaimed Jean Rochefort) seems to be slipping farther into his own fantasies. Florida is a physical location and a state of mind for Claude, whose youngest daughter left France for the Sunshine State several years ago. The venerable and childishly mischievous but proud patriarch suffers from dementia. Sensitive without lapsing into sentimentality, Floride is a gently irreverent movie that blends humor and pathos in this exploration of family and time