14th French Film Festival in Manila

The 14th French Film Festival in Manila (June 5-14, 2009)

The festival opens on Friday, June 5, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at the Grand Atrium Level 2 of Shangri-La Plaza

The 62nd Cannes film festival marks a milestone in the history of Philippine cinema as Brillante “Dante” Mendoza becomes the first Filipino to be awarded the “Best Director” prize for his film “Kinatay.” 2009 will also be remembered as the year that saw five Filipino films in the different sections of the festival: “Kinatay” in the Official Competition, “Independencia” by Raya Martin in Un Certain Regard, “Manila” by Adolfo Alix, Jr and Raya Martin in the Special Screening, “Sabongero” by Janice Perez and “Manong Maong” by Aissa Peñafiel and Miguel Ocampo in the Short Film Corner.

In celebration of this event, the 14th French Film Festival in Manila will be held from June 5-14, 2009 at the Shang Cineplex of Shangri-La Plaza. It will feature a retrospective of 14 French films which have been presented at the Cannes film festival, as well as a sneak preview of the Filipino film “Independencia”, which premiered at Cannes earlier this month.

The festival will open on June 5 with the film “Home” by the famous French photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand. Shot entirely from the sky in high definition, “Home” is a documentary about the stunning beauty of our planet and the alarming danger it faces. It will also be the first movie to be released simultaneously on all media (theatre, TV, DVD and Internet) across 5 continents, as part of World Environment Day, which also be celebrated worldwide on June 5 (www.goodplanet.org).

On June 12, Independence Day, the festival will present a sneak preview of “Independencia”. Produced by Arleen Cuevas, the film has received assistance from the French government through the Fonds Sud Cinema, a grant offered by the French Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.

There will be four screenings each day of the festival. All films are open to the public with free admission on a first-come, first-served basis. The French films that will be screened include François Truffaut’s “Les 400 Coups” (1959), André Téchiné’s “Ma Saison Préférée” (1993), Michael Haneke’s “La Pianiste” (2001) and Benoît Jaquot’s “A tout de suite” (2004). For screening schedules, you may call 633-2277 or visit www.spot.ph.

For Filipino cinephiles who will not be able to attend the Manila screenings, there will also be a French Film Festival in Cebu which will run from June 19-21 at the Ayala Center Cebu. This event will feature many of the same films that will be shown in Manila.

The French Film Festival is organized by the French Embassy to the Philippines, together with CulturesFrance and Alliance Française de Manille, with the generous support of Shangri-La Plaza, the Shang Cineplex, Pioneer Films and Spot.ph. The French Film Festival in Cebu is organized through the efforts of Les Amis de la France and with the cooperation of the Arts Council of Cebu, and Ayala Center Cebu.

The logo of the festival shows the intertwined laurel branch of the Cannes Film Festival and a coconut branch to symbolize the strong cultural ties between France and the Philippines through cinema.

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Etha Dam Company Presents Aduna, Land of Adventure @ CCP

Wi-fi Body is linked to The French Spring in Manila hotspot !

The Etha Dam Company
Presents
Aduna, land of Adventure

June 7, 2008, 8pm
Cultural Center of the Philippines
Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino

ETHA DAM, an urban dance group from France , founded in 1998, has managed to overturn the stereotypes of hip hop with their original and dynamic style, combining street dance with theatre dance techniques

The choreographic style of Ibrahima Sissoko has also been influenced by capoeira and African dance. Representing the new school of street dancing, ETHA DAM, gathers skilled dancers sharing the same spirit.

Aduna, land of adventures is a journey the unknown and an encounter with a stranger, it is an invitation to a journey full of emotions and surprise. Keywords are tolerance and solidarity. Aduna is a very powerful and colorful work, with nearly poetic lighting. Music composed by Sissoko plays an essential part in the work. It accentuates and supports the extremely physical and expressive movement of the dancers. The atmosphere of Aduna is impetuously intensive. It provides a breath of mysticism from distant lands to the festival.

Etha Dam has already performed Aduna with great success on many stages all over the world: Sweden , Finland , Switzerland , Belgium , England , Italy , Santo Domingo , Haiti , Colombia , Ecuador , Venezuela , and Senegal .

Choreography : Sissoko Ibrahima

Dancers :

Azerou Messaoud, Cissokho Aboubakar, Cissokho Demba, Cissokho Sileymane, Gast Jean-Michel, Houssam Akim, Niakaté Modi

Light Creation: Lanteri-Cravet Julie Lola

Scénography : Vallet Stéphane

The Etha Dam Company
Presents
Aduna, land of Adventure

June 7, 2008, 8pm
Cultural Center of the Philippines
Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino

For inquiries and ticket sales :
mktg@culturalcenter .gov.ph
Office : 832-3704 / 832-1125 loc. 1405 – 1406
www.culturalcenter.gov.ph

Available also at Ticketworld 891-9999
Find the lists of outlets online :
www.ticketworld.com.ph

Alliance Francaise de Manille
Fax : 899-3654
Email : reservation@ alliance. ph
Tel. 8957883 / 8957441 / 8957757

Special AFM Ticket prices :
Orchestra center : P400.
Orchestra side : P300.

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Santiguár @ Alliance Total Gallery

Santiguár
Alliance Total Gallery
Alliance Francaise de Manille,
209 Nicanor Garcia St., Bel-Air II, Makati City
January 16, 2007 to February 17, 2007

The word sounds either arcane or quack, but as practiced in Bikol santiguar is a curing or divining ritual, in which the healer or medicine man or woman, usually an herb doctor (herbolario), calls upon the power of the elements or gods, later of God.

To reveal the cause of a person’s illness and thereby proceed to cure him. There are apparently many versions or variations of santiguar, but two are quite common. One, in which the scryer smokes a clear dish (of glass or china) by candle flame and interprets the shapes created by the smoke. Another involves letting fall wax melting from a lighted candle on a basin of water and likewise reading the shapes. Santiguar is really preliminary to the cure. The chant in pig Latin or pidgin Spanish is simultaneous with or followed by the divination, then the application of the appropriate herbal or poultice.

Santiguár (Sp., to make the sign of the cross, to bless; santiguo, santiguas, santiguan). It is unclear whether the word is a Spanish descriptive of the native ritual the friars found in the colonies (the word appears in administrative reports of the Conquista in both Central America and the Philippines, and is still found in Spanish dictionaries available on the Web), or it is an adoption or corruption, in practice and language, by the natives themselves as they came into contact with Spanish Catholicism. But a closer look at the word reveals its probable and syncretic origins - from santo and agua, holy and water (water of the saints?) - pointing to a priest’s ritual sprinkling of holy water, mainly as a blessing, but taken by natives as a charm against harm. Pagans, after all, used a wet leafy branch instead of an aspergillum to anoint the faithful.

The blessing, the making of the sign of the cross (mag-santó in Tagalog), might have lost currency in our pill-and-cough-drop, ultra-sound, magnetic-resonance-imaging digital world. But the chanting and the herbals might yet reveal to us our inadequate relationship with nature: how by calling it by name, we might yet work and live with it without killing or wasting it, or how we might even exorcise our ignorance of how it works. And how, with rudimentary understanding, we might yet clear ourselves away from the path of its upheavals, by ocean or crater, or at least soothe and salve our wounds, our losses, our deaths.

Nature is not easy to understand. Man, a bit easier. Well, he seems, in fact, the only one capable, among all species, of understanding nature and himself. If he can’t, or refuses to, and disregards others, and steps on toes and paws, fins and claws in the process, and ends up in sand and slick, he needs santiguar. Bless him.

Alliance Total Gallery is located at the Alliance Francaise de Manille, 209 Nicanor Garcia St., Bel-Air II, Makati City.

For more details on Santiguár at the Alliance Total Gallery, which runs from January 16, 2007 to February 17, 2007, please call 895-7585, 895-7441 or email: info@alliance.ph.

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Free Film Showing @ Alliance Française de Manille

Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré

Alliance Française de Manille

209, Nicanor Garcia St. (formerly Reposo St.),
Bel-Air II, Makati City.

Tel: 895 7585 / 895 7441
Fax: 899 3654
Alliance Française de Manille's Cine Club

Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré
(Work Hard, Play Hard)
a film by Jean-Marc Moutout
(French version, with English subtitles)
2004, 99 minutes
Le Coude Rouge Restaurant is open before and after the film screening
Alliance Ondeo Auditorium
Wednesday, January 31, 2007, 8:30 PM
(Free Admission)

Genre: Drama (and more)

Cast:
Jérémie Renier .... Philippe Seigner
Laurent Lucas .... Hugo Paradis
Cylia Malki .... Eva
Olivier Perrier .... Roland Manin
Samir Guesmi .... Adji Zerouane, (and more)

Synopsis:

Philippe (25 years of age) arrives from the provinces in Paris to take up a job in a large consulting firm. On the morning of his first day at work he meets Eva, a young solo mother. They quickly become involved. He is enthusiastic about his first mission which is to audit a small factory with view to a takeover by a large corporation - unbeknownst to the factory employees. Philippe's boss is impressed by his reports and hands him the responsibility of a new task: to select the staff who will be capable of adjusting to the factory's new organization. Henceforth, Philippe must convince himself and Eva of the validity of his work and confront the men and women who will lose their jobs in the takeover.

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