The program for Adelaide Film Festival 2022 was announced on Monday night. 2022 sees the festival become a yearly event. Across two articles, we’re sharing with you films from France and the Francophonie that are and aren’t in French. This time, we’re letting you know about multilingual films where French is one of the languages.
AEIOU – A Quick Alphabet of Love
Director: Nicolette Krebitz
Country: Germany, France
Languages: French, German
“A whimsical romantic drama championing female desire” (Screen Daily)
As fading actress Anna nears sixty and finds job offers and her sexual desires dwindling, she is mugged by a teenager outside a Berlin bar. She encounters the young man, Adrian, once again as a student in a speech class she has taken on to pay the bills. Gently and sweetly, an unlikely romance blooms between the misfit pair as they begin to mend their fractured souls and plan an escape to the French Riviera. Charmingly offbeat, presented without judgment and featuring sparkling performances, Nicolette Krebitz delivers a unique lesson in human drama.
Director: Lukas Dhont
Country: Belgium, France, Netherlands
Languages: Dutch, French
Close is a film about friendship and connection. 13-year-olds Leo and Remy have grown up together in the vibrant Belgian countryside, spending summer riding bikes and playing games of pretend. It is an idyll too good to last. When high school starts, their closeness marks them out from their peers, and Leo’s attempts to distance himself have far-reaching consequences. Lukas Dhont’s study of boys’ loss of tenderness, and his understated treatment of guilt and grief made this the most controversial film at Cannes, though everyone agrees on its undoubted emotional affect.
Director: Roger Gariépy
Country: Canada
Language: French
Léon is old, his body is letting him down. And so he sleeps. Yet above all, Léon dreams. Of love and sausages, of freedom and running wild. A real dog’s life.
Director: Alain Ugetto
Countries: France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal
Languages: French, Italian
Happy are those who have bread and polenta.
But really, if you’re Italian, you must see this. Animator Alain Ughetto provides a love letter to his grandparents, peasants from the Piedmont region, where there is too much war, too many children, and not enough food. The only option is to emigrate, and France is hungry for labourers who will do whatever it takes to put polenta in the pot. Ughetto’s charming animation provides houses made from cardboard and forests of broccoli. The effect is quietly magical in this love letter to all families forced into exile to survive.
READ OUR REVIEW OF NO DOGS OR ITALIANS ALLOWED HERE
Director: Davy Chou
Country: France, Germany, Belgium
Languages: English, French, Korean
“…strange, deep, changeable and wise” (Variety)
Freddie knows nothing of Korea because she was adopted as a baby and taken to France. She returns on a whim, but doesn’t understand the language, the etiquette of soju drinking, and the incomprehensible men. The search for her biological parents leads her to internalise the gulf between cultures. Debut actress Park Ji-min won plaudits at Cannes for her extraordinary performance. Cambodian director Davy Chou—himself raised in France—explores the costs of living in exile in this slow-burning though often exuberant examination of rebellion and despair born of rootlessness.
Director: Maryam Touzani
Country: Morocco, France, Belgium, Denmark
Language: Arabic, French
A satin textured tale of forbidden relationships.
The Blue Caftan is a delicate, humane three-hander where the characters are filled with empathy and complexity. Director Maryam Touzani is an expert at conveying intimacy, each shot unfolding with an almost tactile beauty. From the narrow streets of a romantic but repressive Morocco emerges this lovingly handcrafted love triangle. Master tailor and closeted gay man Halim runs a struggling business with wife Mina. When the couple hire a handsome assistant, the two men begin to weave a tender relationship. However, as Mina battles cancer, she and Halim strengthen a bond tied by years of understanding.
Director: Moussa Sene Absa
Country: Senegal
Languages: French, Wolof
An African tale told by griots.
15-year-old Awa and Adama are twins: they share the same angels, angels who do not always have their best interests at heart. Adama dreams of escaping to Europe, while Awa tries to balance school, work, and attention of men. Senegal’s Moussa Sène Absa blends tragedy with the Senegalese traditions of griots (storyteller/singers) and vibrant West African colour and music to bring alive the dilemmas of African youth, caught between family and modernity. The exciting stylisation of his storytelling provides a distinctive means of showing African cinema rising to the challenges of today.
KEY INFO FOR ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL 2022
WHAT: Adelaide Film Festival 2022
WHERE: Various cinemas across Adelaide including Palace Nova East End and Prospect, Mitcham Wallis, Odeon Star Semaphore, The Capri Goodwood, and Her Majesty’s Theatre
WHEN: 19 – 30 October 2022
HOW: Purchase your ticket/passes via the official website
HOW MUCH: There are various ticket options available from single tickets, to passes for 3, 7 or 10 films or the Gold Pass and Platinum Pass for those who want to attend every single screening!
Prices (exclusive of booking fees) are as follows:
- Individual film sessions $20 or $17 for Concession/Industry
- Opening Night – Film and Party $109/ $99 for AFF members
- Gala screenings $49/$45 for Concession/Industry
- Multipass 3 (standard screenings): $50/$43
- Multipass 7 (standard screenings): $99/$85 Concession/Industry
- Multipass 10 (standard screenings): $120/$99 Concession/Industry
- Gold Pass (1 ticket to all standard screenings): $299/$255 for Concession/Industry
- Platinum Pass (1 ticket to all standard sceenings including opening night, closing night and galas. Party invitations. Special Events. Concierge service and AFF Lanyard): $599/$525 Concession/Industry
Which films do you want to see at Adelaide Film Festival 2022?
