MyFrenchFilmFestival 2021: The online line-up
David Farnor | On 15, Jan 2021
Today marks the launch of MyFrenchFilmFestival 2021, bringing a new wave of French-language cinema to screens around the world.
Now in its 11th year, more than 30 films (including features and shorts) will stream online, ranging from comedies and drama to documentary and VR works. It splits its line-up into themed categories. Forever Young includes coming-of-age stories about young people and the transition from adolescence to adulthood, Crazy Loving Families features moments of humour, tenderness, and complicated family situations, True Heroines celebrates female figures who take full control of their destiny, French Ghost Stories offers a panorama of spooky tales, On the Road evokes the migration of women and men portrayed in the cinema, Love is Love questions love in all its shapes and forms and Kids Corner shares French cinema with the youngest friends and family members through animated shorts without dialogue, and New Horizons discovers new forms of images and artistic innovation.
Running from 15th January to 15th February, the festival’s films will be available to stream throughout the month. Not all of them available in the UK, but the ones that are can be streamed on a range of platforms, including to rent on Curzon Home Cinema, iTune and CHILI. Some are also available with an Amazon Prime, MUBI or BFI Player subscription.
Read on for the line-up of films available on the UK and where you can watch them.
Adolescentes (Forever Young)
Emma and Anaïs are best friends and yet everything in their life seems to oppose them, their social background but also their personality. From the age of 13 to 18, Adolescentes follows the two teenagers during these years where radical transformations and first times punctuate daily life. Through their personal stories, the film offers a portrair of France and its recent history.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
You Deserve a Lover (Forever Young)
Following Remi’s infidelity, Lila – deeply in love – is struggling to deal with their break-up. From Bolivia, where he has gone on a soul-searching quest, Remi lets her know that their relationship is not over… Moving from one encounter to the next, between discussion, consolation and incitements to crazy love, Lila loses herself.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Enormous (Crazy Loving Families)
Claire is a world-renowned prodigy pianist. She travels the world, assisted and pampered by Frédéric her husband-agent-coach-PA. They are in perfect harmony: they don’t want children. However, after witnessing a surprise childbirth during a Paris-New York flight, an unexpected desire for parenthood arises in Frédéric. He tampers with Claire’s pill, who soon wakes up to her worst nightmare…
Available on MUBI from 16th January. Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Felicità (Crazy Loving Families)
Tommy, 11 years old, is on the road again with her eccentric parents. This time, her freshly out-of-jail father has promised her: she won’t miss the first school day of the term! That was before her dad stole a sports car, her mother disappeared and an astronaut popped by.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Just Kids (Crazy Loving Families)
After losing both their parents, Jack, 19, Lisa, 17, and Mathis, 10, have to fend for themselves. Being of age, Jack can petition for the custody of his siblings, and so soon finds himself in charge – of his own future, but also Lisa’s and in particular Mathis’. Lisa leaves town to move to the South of France. Likewise, Jack decides to leave with his young brother.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Camille (True Heroines)
Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Working Girls (True Heroines)
Working Girls tells the story of three women, Axelle, Conso, and Dominique, who have nothing in common except for the fact that they are colleagues and cross the border together every day to go to work.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Kuessipan (True Heroines)
Mikuan and Shaniss, two girls growing up in a Quebec Innu community, have been inseparable since childhood. Their plans to stick together no matter what are put to the test as they approach adulthood. Mikuan, who has writing aspirations, falls for Francis, a white boy from Sept-Îles and begins to dream of leaving the reservation. Meanwhile, Shaniss, already a mother, tries to protect her boyfriend, who is the father of her child, when he’s wanted by the police for assault and battery after an altercation in a bar.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Burning Ghost (French Ghost Stories)
Juste wanders the streets of Paris looking for people only he can see. He collects their last memory before helping them into the afterlife. One day Agathe, a young woman, recognizes him. She belongs to his previous life. She is alive and he is a ghost. How will they manage to love each other and seize this second chance?
Not included with Amazon Prime / Not available on CHILI / Not available on Curzon Home Cinema
Orpheus (French Ghost Stories)
Orpheus is Jean Cocteau’s poetic retelling of the celebrated myth in a modern setting. The famous Left Bank poet, Orpheus, is enchanted by Death in the guise of an enigmatic Princess, for whom he leaves his wife, Eurydice. But the Princess, knowing the impossibility of their love, sends Orpheus back to Eurydice…
Not available on CHILI / Not available on Curzon Home Cinema
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Heroes Don’t Die (On The Road)
After being violently called out by a stranger, Joachim believes he is the reincarnation of a Serbian soldier who died on the very day he was born. He embarks with his friend Alice and a small film crew on a journey to Bosnia to track back details of his former life. In a country haunted by war, Alice will manage to make him reach immortality.
Available on MUBI from 21st January. Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Josep (On The Road)
February 1939. Spanish republicans are fleeing Franco’s dictatorship to France. The French government built concentration camps, confining the refugees, where they barely have access to hygiene, water and food. In one of these camps, separated by barbed wire, two men will become friends. One is a guard, the other is Josep Bartoli (Barcelona 1910 – NYC 1995), an illustrator who fights against Franco’s regime.
Available on MUBI from 28th January. Included with a BFI Player subscription.
Madame (Love Is Love)
A grandmother and her grandson engage in an intimate conversation, exploring gender, sexuality, and the transmission of identity.
Included with a BFI Player subscription.