Film
dir. François Truffaut, 1971, 132 mins
Ten years after Jules et Jim, Truffaut turned his attention back to the love triangle and another novel by Henri-Pierre Roché. This time the setting is a Welsh coastal resort, and the protagonists a young French writer and two English sisters. One of Truffaut’s most personal and romantic films.
 |
Henri-Pierre Roché, Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (Gallimard, April 1956) |
Film
dir. Roman Polanski, 2017, 110 mins
Adapted from Delphine de Vigan's award-winning novel by Roman Polanski and Olivier Assayas, Based on a True Story blurs the line between reality and fiction. Overwhelmed by the success of her latest novel, Delphine can’t find the strength to write. She gradually realises that the smart and intuitive Elle is not exactly the good friend she claims to be.
 |
Delphine de Vigan, Based on a True Story, translated by George Miller (Bloomsbury, September 2017) |
Film
dir. Kaouther Ben Hania, 2017, 100 mins
During a student party, Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, meets the mysterious Youssef and leaves with him. A long night begins, during which she’ll have to fight for her rights and her dignity in the hands of a gang of dirty cops. Tunisian author and director Kaouther Ben Hania depicts an edifying portrait of her country poisoned by corruption and male chauvinism.
 |
Meriem Ben Mohamed, La Belle et la Meute (Michel Lafon, October 2017) |
Film
dir. Albert Dupontel, 2017, 115 mins
Winner of 5 Cesar Awards, Albert Dupontel’s crime epic is an adaptation from Pierre Lemaître’s Goncourt winning novel, Au revoir là-haut. In November 1918, Edouard Pericourt, a gifted artist, saves the life of Albert Maillard, a humble bookkeeper. The two men have nothing in common apart from their experience of war and their hatred for Lieutenant Pradelle.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Albert Dupontel.
 |
Pierre Lemaître, The Great Swindle, translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press, November 2016) |
Film
dir. Jean Becker, 2018, 83 mins
Adapted from The Red Collar by Prix Goncourt winner Jean-Christophe Rufin, Jean Becker’s WW1 drama tells the story of a war hero, held prisoner in an abandoned barracks under the crushing heat of summer, and awaiting his interrogation by a corrupt judge to the sound of his mangy dog barking night and day.
Preceded by an introduction by Adriana Hunter, who translated Jean-Christophe Rufin’s novel The Red Collar from French to English
Talk and Screening
Talented French publisher and film director Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens, founder of POL, died in January 2018. In a series of pop-up readings introduced by writer and translator Frédéric Boyer, two of Paul's authors, Goncourt prize winner Atiq Rahimi and Medicis prize winner Marie Darrieussecq, will be joined by guests Catriona Seth, Adrian Rifkin, Christopher MacLehose, Dominic Glynn and Stefan Tobler, who will read from some of the best authors he published: Georges Perec, Marguerite Duras, Jean-Louis Schefer, Olivier Cadiot, Emmanuelle Pagano, Emmanuel Carrère...
Followed by an exceptional screening, in French, of Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens' film Editeur.
 |
Atiq Rahimi |
 |
Marie Darrieussecq |
Film
dir. Terry Braun, 1992, 120 mins
Television Degree Zero was a special edition of BBC’s The Late Show (1990): a pithy deconstruction of the legacy of one of France’s most influential intellectuals, Roland Barthes, whose essay The Death of the Author first appeared in France in 1968. The screening is preceded by a selection of interview clips with Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous, as part of Radical Broadcasters Theory On TV.
The screening will be preceded by an introduction by Film Critic Brian Dillon
 |
Tiphaine Samoyault, Barthes. A Biography, translated by Andrew Brown (Polity Press, January 2017) |
Film
dir. Brian de Palma, 1974, 92 mins
Composer Winslow Leach hides his wounded face beneath a sinister silver mask and writes his music for the woman he loves. Betrayed by evil producer Swan, he decides to haunt his rock palace, the Paradise. Brian de Palma’s rock opera is a flamboyant horror comedy loosely adapted from Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera.
The screening will be preceded by an introduction by Dr Annette Davison (University of Edinburgh)
 |
Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera, translated by Mireille Ribière (Penguin Classics, April 2012) |
Film
dir. Michel Hazanavicius, 2017, 107 mins
Paris 1967. Jean-Luc Godard, the most renowned filmmaker of his generation, is shooting La Chinoise with the woman he loves, Anne Wiazemsky. Happy, in love, magnetic, they marry. But the film’s reception unleashes in Jean-Luc a profound self-examination amplified by the events of May '68.
|
May ’68 and its Legacies |
