The Top 5 Most Popular Films for This Year’s Festival
With the Alliance Française French Film Festival finishing its first week, we have taken a look at the numbers to compile the Top 5 most popular films for this year’s festival.
#1: La Belle Époque
A French film to equal the gleeful inventiveness of The Truman Show, director Nicolas Bedos reminds us not only of who we once were, but who we have the potential to become. Victor (Auteuil), a 70-something tech-phobic cartoonist, is struggling both professionally and personally. His work is evaporating with the growing dominance of the Internet, and his wife, Marianne (Ardant), loathes him. Things take a turn when Victor meets Antoine (Guillaume Canet) whose company offers a unique theatrical service where customers are able to revisit memories and play out fantasies through carefully orchestrated re-enactments. Victor decides to relive the most memorable week of his existence, 40 years earlier, when he met the love of his life. La Belle Époque is at once dazzling and soul-stirring yet, ultimately, a heartwarming allegory.
#3: The Translators
As the eagerly awaited final book of a best-selling series is about to be globally released, nine international language experts have been hired to translate it into their native tongues. With the stakes so high, the supercilious publisher has them on lock-down in a luxurious bunker to complete the task. But when the first ten pages of the top-secret manuscript inexplicably leak online with a ransom threat, it’s evident that the thief could only be amongst them.
#4: We’ll End Up Together
It’s been years since middle-aged restaurateur Max (François Cluzet) has received his friends at his gorgeous summer house in the chic beach community of Cap Ferret. The group have traditionally reconnected there for his birthday, but since things didn’t exactly go as planned last time, they haven’t seen much of one another. It turns out Max is divorcing and his villa is up for sale, so when pals Marie (Marion Cotillard), Vincent (Benoît Magimel), now-famous actor Éric (Gilles Lellouche) and his hapless buddy-turned-assistant Antoine (Laurent Lafitte) arrive unannounced to celebrate a significant milestone, it’s not necessarily a welcome surprise. This ensemble comedy was the second-highest-grossing French Film of 2019 and boasts a star-studded cast, so get your friends together, and be dazzled by this raucous slice of rollicking, all-star fun.
#5: The Extraordinary
From the creators of The Intouchables, The Extraordinary follows real-life figure, Stéphane Benhamou, who runs an informal shelter in Paris for autistic youth who have fallen through the cracks of the welfare system. The film maintains incredible levity through grace and humour and features an impeccable performance from Vincent Cassel.
