Alliance Francaise French Film Festival launches national program
The biggest program of French film outside France will this year feature Catherine Deneuve as Bernadette Chirac, and Johnny Depp as King Louis XV.
When Lea Domenach was shooting The President’s Wife (Bernadette), her gently satirical biopic about Bernadette Chirac, she concealed the film’s existence from the former French first lady and the Chirac clan.
Domenach says: “We kept the whole shooting and the whole film secret to the family. We never talked to them … because we wanted to be absolutely free in the shooting and the film itself.” (Bernadette Chirac, who is sometimes seen as France’s answer to Hillary Clinton, is now 90. Her husband, former French president Jacques Chirac, died in 2019.)
The couple’s daughter, Claude, is reportedly unimpressed by the film, which is essentially a comic reinvention story about a first lady (Bernadette) who is initially considered a liability by her unfaithful husband and his minders, but eventually turns herself into France’s most popular political figure.
First-time director Domenach convinced French cinema’s grande dame, Catherine Deneuve, to take on the movie’s central role and admits she was initially “a bit intimidated” by the star. “What she (Deneuve) brought to the film was a sort of tenderness, of empathy for the character, especially in the scenes with her daughters,” she says. “To me, it was great.”
The President’s Wife will premiere in Australia at this year’s Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, which opens in Sydney and Brisbane on March 5. The festival’s 35th iteration will screen across 15 locations, including every state capital, Canberra, the Gold Coast and regional towns Bunbury and Victor Harbor.
Remarkably, the festival has grown to become the biggest showcase of contemporary French film outside France. More than 176,000 tickets were sold in 2023, and this year’s line-up includes nine period films and 10 movies that have been nominated for the Cesar Awards (France’s Oscars equivalent).
Festival highlights were announced on Thursday by outgoing festival artistic director and French cultural attache Karine Mauris, and The President’s Wife ranks among her top picks.
Mauris says it is “a very cheeky movie” and that Deneuve, 80, is incredible in the film, which may be her last. “She said she may stop after this one,” Mauris says.
Interestingly, in order to transform her image, Deneuve’s Bernadette adopts Princess Diana’s strategy of performing good deeds with a booster shot of showbiz pizzazz. Cue comic interventions by Karl Lagerfeld, a boy band and, of course, a charity that helps sick children.
Other festival highlights are the first French film treatment in 30 years of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel, The Three Musketeers. French director Martin Bourboulon helms this rollicking adaptation focused on the elite 17th century Musketeers of the Guard, portrayed by Vincent Cassel, Pio Marmai and Romain Duris. Courageous wannabe musketeer Charles D’Artagnan is played by Francois Civil, and ex-Bond girl Eva Green also wields a sword.
Mauris has chosen the blockbuster’s first part, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, as her opening night film. She says Bourboulon’s €72m spectacle “is now the biggest hit in France” and has been seen by more than five million people there. “The casting is amazing,” she says. “I am so proud to have a double blockbuster in my festival.”
Controversial Hollywood star Johnny Depp stars as King Louis XV in another period French film, Jeanne du Barry. The movie opened the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and is Depp’s first major role since he won his widely reported defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard.
Outspoken writer-director Maiwenn plays the titular role, an impoverished 17th century woman who became mistress to Louis XV. Best known for his exploits in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Depp depicts a dandyish king in what is his first French-speaking role.
Another festival highlight sees French Academy Award winner Juliette Binoche star in The Taste of Things, the film anointed as France’s official entry (in the best international film category) for the 2024 Oscars. A sensual and eye-popping statement about cooking as an act of love, the film earned director Tran Anh Hung (best known for The Scent of Green Papaya) the best director prize at Cannes last year.
Other festival highlights include Animal Kingdom, set in a futuristic world in which people succumb to grotesque animal mutations, and Iris and the Men, a comedy about middle-aged desire featuring Call My Agent’s Laure Calamy.
A screening of The President’s Wife kicked off the highlights program, and Domenach tells The Australian: “When I was younger, I had no positive image of Bernadette Chirac. I thought she was conservative or old-fashioned or strict.”
She later saw a documentary on the former first lady, and “through that I discovered her funny side. I discovered the story of the woman who is taking revenge over her husband”.
“Being a feminist, being a leftist, I was kind of impressed by that story … I thought it could be a universal story to be told,” she says.
Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, March 5-April 16.
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