The 22nd Annual COLCOA French Film Festival Opens

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Category: France A&E, Lifestyle, Culture
Published on Wednesday, 25 April 2018 21:01
Written by Janet Walker

Promise at Dawn, from Director Eric Barbier, opened the 22nd Annual COLCOA French Film Festival, the oft time hilarious story of an overbearing single mother, her son, her aspirations for him and society in pre-war Europe.

 

Based on the autobiography of the same name by Romain Gary, Promise at Dawn stars Charlotte Gainsbourg and Pierre Niney, as Nina and Romain, a mother looking to build a life and never seeing boundaries as anything but stepping stones to a greater destiny and future.

She comically drills her grandiose visions into her son, who grows up believing that one day he will be a great writer (he was) and an French Ambassador (he was) and along the way she finds time to ensure his successes, his acceptance into lives yet to be lived, his expertise, hidden, really just needing the right teacher, the escapades, injuries, and of course, World War II.

The captivating performances, thoroughly entertaining story, and superb direction elicited a rousing round of sustained applause from the at capacity crowd.

The post screening included a Q&A with American Director Taylor Hackford and writer and Director Eric Barbier.

The Franco-American Cultural Fund Announces Complete Lineup For COLCOA Film Festival, Eric Barbier's "Promise Of Dawn" Open's Festival

COLCOA will host an encore screening of Promise at Dawn, Saturday, April 28, at 1:30PM. Tickets are available online.

With the film festival in full swing there are many screening choices available throughout the day and into the evenings.

For those familiar with the dysfunctional and very funny and extremely talented cast of the French television series Call My Agent, available on Netflix, Thibault De Montalembert, who plays Mathias Barneville, is starring in the comedic-drama Jealous and Francois Civil, also of Call My Agent fame, who plays Hippolyte Riviere, appears in Burn Out, as a daredevil professional superbike motorcycle driver.

The documentary of consummate Chef Alain Ducasse screens in a single performance on Sunday, April 29, 2018.

The weekend will offers a potpourri of public screenings. The entire program of COLCOA Television is open to the public without cost. The screenings are first come, first served and the screening rooms are small.

Intrigue, political sabotage, art thieves, repressed memories, serial killers and the thirty something who lost his job slacker smoking pot in his mother's basement are all part of the COLCOA French Television offerings.

The COLCOA television screenings are also showing the North American Premiere of a Made for TV French movie, Special Honors staring Marie Del Zotto, an actress with Downs Syndrome, who portrays a character facing the challenges of the same. The film also stars Burno Salomone, Helene De Faugerolles, Jonathan Lambert, Maiira Schmitt and Gaspard Meier-Chaurand.

For those looking for an highly regarded comedy, C'EST LA VIE! is having is West Coast premiere at the COLCOA Festival. Garnering 10 Cesar nominations, the equivalent of the Oscar, the comedy of Max, a cantankerous caterer and wedding planner, played by the irascible Jean-Pierre Bacri, attempts to coordinate a "sober, chic and elegant" wedding in a 17th century chateau with the zaniest bunch of waiters, cooks, dishwashers, photographers and singers this side of the Ringling brothers. C'EST LA VIE! is playing Saturday, April 28, 2018.

COLCOA French Film Festival Announces Focus On A Composer and Television Selections For 22nd Edition

Saturday's programming also includes THE PARTY'S OVER, which centers on two teens admitted to a rehab facility on the same day. Kicked out soon after for breaking the rules the two are hoping to stay clean as they navigate the realities of life. A festival favorite, The Party's Over, screens at 1:45PM on Saturday, April 28.

All films are in French with English subtitles and will be shown at the DGA.

With free television screenings and made for television movies, as well as main theater screenings comedies, dramas, documentaries, VR and Short films, the 22nd COLCOA French Film Festival has something for everyone.

For more information www.colcoa.org.

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