From Brisbane to Ballarat, Australians fall for French cinema

Abou Sangare’s prize-winning turn in Story of Souleymane is just one of the highlights of the 2025 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, the biggest showcase of Gallic movies outside France.

Abou Sangare in the Story of Souleymane, a centrepiece of the 2025 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival. Picture: Alliance Française French Film Festival.

It is a case of art imitating life, albeit with unexpected twists. When Guinean asylum seeker Abou Sangare applied for French visas so he could keep living and working in Paris, he was rejected three times. Then, in a surprising turn of events, he was cast in the 2024 feature film, The Story of Souleymane.

An untrained actor, Sangaré would earn rave reviews for his debut performance as an undocumented immigrant and food delivery cyclist who “rents” the identity of a friend. As his character races the clock day and night delivering meals across Paris’s clogged streets, he is running out of time to prepare his residency application.

Boris Lojkine’s thriller-like film, which is screening at this year’s Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, has earned international acclaim. Described as “breathtaking” by Le Monde and “superb” by Variety, it took home three trophies from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, including a best actor award in the Un Certain Regard division for Sangare.

The 23-year-old debut performer was also crowned best actor at the 2025 Cesar and 2024 European Film Awards, and has been praised for the soul, sensitivity and precise emotion he brings to his role as a migrant seeking asylum in a murky world of borrowed identities and true and embellished stories of persecution.

Yet even as he collected his awards, Sangare, who arrived in France when he was 16, still lacked work and residency rights. “When we chose Sangaré to play the main role in the film, it was a big responsibility,” Lojkine has said. “It’s only when he has his papers that I will feel like I have finished my film.”

In January, Sangare was finally granted a year-long French work visa. However, in a further twist, in order to remain in France, he has put his acting career on ice and is working as a mechanic. “There might be (acting) offers but I’m a mechanic, that’s my trade,” the strikingly handsome performer told the French newspaper Libération.

He said at the recent Cesar awards ceremony that during his years spent in legal limbo, “I did not see myself as a human being’’ and thanked Lojkine’s film team and the prize organisers “for integrating me into humanity’’.

The Story of Souleymane is one of the 42 films that comprise the 2025 French Film Festival. It’s the first program curated by CEO Frederic Alliod, who says he was drawn to Lojkine’s film partly because of the way it engages with contemporary issues but “doesn’t tell you what to think”.

Remarkably, in its 36 years, the French Film Festival has grown to become the biggest showcase of Gallic cinema outside France. It’s also Australia’s biggest film festival. Alliod says: “We’ve been contacted by many cities who are very interested in hosting the festival.’’ However, for logistical, staffing and budgetary reasons, the festival has had to turn down some of these requests.

Despite this, the 2024 French Film Festival achieved a record 188,000 attendances, making it one of Australia’s largest ticketed national cultural events. This year the festival is being screened in 20 cities and towns and has enlarged its footprint to include five new urban, regional and suburban centres – Ballarat, Ballina, Warriewood, Warrawong and Darwin.

While the 2025 Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne programs are in their final days, the inaugural Darwin program runs from April 24 to 27. This marks the first time all state and territory capitals are included. Alliod, who works for the French Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says: “It is symbolic that we are in the Northern Territory. So this time, we are really fully national. And as a symbol that is strong for us.’’

Tahar Rahim stars in Monsieur Aznavour, part of the 2025 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival. Picture: Alliance Française French Film Festival.

The festival CEO has been in his role for one year and has worked on film festivals for the French Embassy in five countries. “Cinema is like wine,’’ he declares. “You have good years and bad years. Last year was a very good year.’’ He is talking about the French movie industry’s 2024 crop of films, from which his program is largely drawn.

His line-up features French stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Pierre Niney and Vincent Cassel and Call My Agent! alumni Laure Calamy and Camille Cottin. Genres range from romantic comedies to period films, blockbusters and a classic – once considered politically controversial – about the French resistance. Another focus of Alliod’s eclectic program are biopics of French cultural legends including the singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour (Monsieur Aznavour); actor Sarah Bernhardt (The Divine Sarah Bernhardt) and composer Maurice Ravel (Bolero).

“A must have for me”, Alliod says, is the period blockbuster The Count of Monte Cristo, a big-budget adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s literary classic that conquered the French box office, achieving almost 10 million ­admissions.

Matthieu Delaporte’s and Alexandre de La Patellière’s new adaptation is the first French cinematic treatment of Dumas’ tale of ­romance, injustice and revenge in more than five decades.

“It’s a big budget, beautiful production,” says Alliod. “It’s a modern take yet it’s very respectful of the novel.’’

Another French box office sensation, Monsieur Aznavour, opened the 2025 festival and charts the rise of Armenian immigrant turned singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour. Aznavour was mocked for his diminutive stature and raspy voice but rose to become “the face of French music’’.

Tahar Rahim’s performance in the title role earned him a Golden Globe nomination and Alliod says this film represents “the best of what France has to offer, in terms of a success story, in terms of culture’’. He describes this tale of “struggle, hope, failure, and eventually, incredible accomplishment’’ as a French version of the American dream.

Every year, the festival revisits a classic of French cinema. Featured this year is the restored movie, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, an emphatically unromanticised portrait of the French Resistance during World War Two. The film, which depicts a betrayal from within the ranks of the Resistance, was heavily criticised when it was released in France in 1969.

Since then, many critics have come to see this nuanced portrayal of resistance fighters as a masterpiece. Alliod says that programming Army of Shadows “makes sense” in 2025, “because this is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two. Plus it’s a very, very good movie’’. He says it “shows another side of the French resistance; that everything was not black or white’’.

Screening in limited sessions is Audrey Diwan’s critically unloved remake of the erotic film, Emmanuelle, about a woman who works for a luxury hotel brand and is looking for new sensual experiences. In programming this film – in which Naomi Watts stars alongside France’s Noemie Merlant – Alliod says he wanted to be “a bit playful”.

He says Diwan’s rebooted version of the 1970s film Emmanuelle feeds into his program’s sub-theme of female empowerment: “We have 12 female directors this year. Clearly we have a theme about female empowerment. And if you want to have a big picture …. you have also to include this subject of female fantasy, desire and pleasure.’’

Diwan, a Venice Golden Lion award winner, is a co-script writer for another festival offering, Beating Hearts, a cross-class romance about teenage lovers from different sides of the tracks.

A subtitled film festival screening in a record number of centres in Australia, begs the question: Why is there such a big appetite in Australia for French film? Alliod replies: “It is difficult for me to answer this question, because it also comes as a surprise … a delightful surprise. Australian people are pretty Francophile.’’ He says 76 per cent of the festival’s audience are Australian, so the event “is not a French festival for French (expatriate) people’’. He believes Australians are drawn to the romance and exoticism of French culture and language and to the fact that “France is a big producer of cinema’’.

France typically produces more than 200 films a year, and Alliod says of this: “We have a strong industry so we can deliver a great diversity of journeys with good production values. … Also we have these universal, very grounded, realistic stories that you can relate to, with some exoticism.’’

Interestingly, he speculates that Australians have become more accepting of subtitled films as the big streamers, including Amazon and Netflix, have programmed hit movies and drama series from around the world.

Period films are regular festival fare and this year, The Deluge, set during the French Revolution, explores the final days of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. Directed by Italian Gianluca Jodice and starring Melanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet as the doomed royal couple, this critically celebrated film has been characterised as a riposte to earlier cinematic portrayals of Marie Antoinette’s and King Louis’ over-the-top lifestyle.

Imprisoned and forced to contend with their loss of wealth and power – not to mention their imperfect marriage – the royals’ humanity is accentuated in a new way.

A scene from The Deluge, part of the 2025 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival. Picture: Alliance Française French Film Festival.

Alliod says: “Yes, it’s about the revolution. But what you see on screen is a family, a family with constraint. And this is where, for me, it was interesting, because history judges (them) in the way it did … but what you’re going to see are human beings.’’

In Australia, while some cultural industries, such as music festivals, have struggled to recover since the pandemic, Alliod says the French film industry is “in a good place’’. He says admissions to locally-made films in France topped 180 million in 2024, exceeding the 2023 figure, which was also “a very good year” . (Still, while France has largely avoided the steep, post-pandemic fall in cinema attendances seen in North America, China and Spain, ticket sales there are not yet back to pre-pandemic levels.)

In another sign of the robustness of the French cinema industry, Alliod says that last year “the market (box office) share was higher for French cinema than American cinema’’. Blockbusters such as The Count of Monte Cristo contributed to this result.

Alliance Francaise, which promotes French language and Francophone culture, has played a key role in shaping Australia’s French Film Festival and its extraordinary expansion. Alliod is CEO of the non-profit Alliance Francaise French Film Festival Ltd, which was set up 12 months ago to oversee the festival and co-ordinate its growth.

“My position was created because the festival is getting bigger and bigger,’’ says Alliod, who admits he feels “a bit of pressure” to “keep the standards” and audience reach of previous festivals.

For his closing night film, he has chosen a crowd pleaser, Lucas Bernard’s In the Sub for Love, an odd couple romantic comedy that plays out on a submarine.

The festival CEO says romantic comedies are especially popular among festival fans in Australia “because it’s an association you make with the image of France, France being a romantic country, French language being romantic.’’

Another of his aims as festival chief is to spark “meaningful discussions on historical events and contemporary issues’’. The pulse-quickening movie The Good Teacher fits this bill as it follows the story of a teacher wrongly accused of misconduct in the #MeToo era. Francois Civil (of The Three Musketeers fame) plays the young male teacher who is falsely accused of sexual harassment by an introverted student – and must fight for his job and reputation.

“It’s based on true events,’’ says Alliod. “That’s why it is interesting. You watch the film just like it is a thriller. Actually, it is very, very gripping. So for me, this is a typically good movie - entertaining, gripping, and that says something about society, again, (it) doesn’t tell you what to think. And this is what I like about French film in general … you see facts, you have a story, but then you make your own decision.’’

The Alliance Francaise French Film Festival continues in Adelaide until April 23; Perth until April 16; Hobart until April 13; Brisbane until April 8; and in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne until April 9. It is also screening in regional centres. The festival opens in Darwin on April 24