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• Festival returns to Gate Cinema from March 9th to 12th

The annual Alliance Française Cork French Film Festival returns to its March dates, with an exceptionally strong programme which includes a number of Irish premieres and multi-award nominated new films. 

“The Innocent” (“L’Innocent”) by Louis Garrel opens the festival with its Irish premiere at The Gate Cinema on March 9th with tickets currently on sale.  The dark comedy has been nominated for eleven French César awards, the national cinema awards of France, making it the most nominated French film this year. Garrel directs and co-stars as a man who tries to derail his mother’s relationship with a recently released convict, in a campaign that will find him flirting with the wrong side of the law. Based on Garrel’s life story, the film has been described as a romantic dark comedy that is both hilarious and inventive. 

“Rise” (“En Corps”) will close off what promises to be a hugely impressive festival on March 12th. The life-affirming Cédric Klapisch film about a ballet prima donna of the Paris Opera is also César nominated in nine categories. 

The festival will also screen five other premieres this year: “Xalé” by Moussa Sène Absa (Senegal), “Lie With Me” (“Arrête avec tes mensonges”) by Olivier Peyron (France), “Viking” by Stéphane Lafleur (Canada), “Two Tickets to Greece” (“Les Cyclades”) by Marc Fitoussi (France),  and the major biopic “Eiffel” by Martin Bourboulon (France), which receives its first Irish cinema screening at the festival. 

Also on the bill this year is the fabulous audience-pleasing “Driving Madeleine” (“Une Belle Course”), the story of the bonding of a disillusioned taxi driver and an elderly lady whom he accepts to drive through the streets of Paris, allowing her to revisit important places of her past and to share the story of her extraordinary life.

Extending its showcase of Francophone cinema, the festival will also screen the Belgian Oscar nominated film “Close” by Lukas Dhont. 

This year’s theme is Travel; exploring how cinema is both a means to travel virtually and a medium that sparks a desire to travel. The programme features the best of French and Francophone films. The festival, presented by Alliance Française de Cork and supported by the French and Belgian Embassies in Ireland, Amarenco, Brittany Ferries, EirGrid, the Department of French of University College Cork, Eurotranslations Cork, Institut Français and the AIPLF (Irish Association of French-Language Teachers), will also include a family-friendly film, and school screenings.

In 2022, over 800 students from 18 different schools in Cork and Limerick attended the festival’s school screenings. The film proposed this year for secondary schools is “Rémi, Nobody’s Boy” (“Rémi sans famille”), an adventure-drama based on French author Hector Malot’s famous novel about an orphan who accompanies a mysterious itinerant musician in his travels through France and beyond.

Alliance Française de Cork President and Festival Co-Director Valérie David-McGonnell commented:

We are delighted that this year’s Cork French Film Festival has returned to its March dates, as March is known in Ireland as “Francophonie Month” and celebrates the French language and the diversity of the French-speaking world every year. This year’s programme is a rich showcase of the best of Francophone cinema, with fabulous French, Belgian, Canadian, and Senegalese films and a French-Luxembourg co-production. We’re delighted to once again partner with The Gate Cinema, which has been a great friend to the festival over the years. We’re excited to be showing so many Irish premieres, as well as the moving drama-comedy “Driving Madeleine” by Christian Carion, starring two of my favourite French actors from the Hauts-de-France region where I grew up, Line Renaud and Dany Boon. We’re also pleased to propose an excellent film for post-primary students and their teachers.

Cork French Film Festival Co-Director and French Honorary Consul in Cork Josselin Le Gall said:

The Cork French Film Festival has become an integral part of the cultural calendar for fans of French-language cinema but also for cinema-lovers in general as all films are subtitled in English. Our festival is a fantastic way to further strengthen Ireland’s links with France, as we celebrate the 225th anniversary of ‘The Year of the French,’ which celebrates France’s attempt to assist the Society of United Irishmen against British rule by sending several frigates to Ireland in 1798. The links between France and Cork in particular are very important as Cork is home to the second largest French community in Ireland and has been twinned for over 40 years with Rennes in Brittany. We are extremely proud of the fact that the Cork French Film Festival is one of Munster’s longest running festivals, which attracts audiences from all over the country. The line-up this year is exceptional, we have no doubt that it will be well received by everyone who attends the screenings.

The full programme of the 34th Cork French Film Festival will be available soon. Tickets for the opening film are now available at The Gate Cinema and online at cork.gatecinemas.com.