Colcoa French Film Fest opens with Claude Lelouch’s “Everyone’s Life”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Claude Lelouch’s “Everyone’s Life” will open the 21st Colcoa French Film Festival on April 24, Variety reports.

“Everyone’s Life” (Chacun sa vie), a North American premiere, celebrates 50 years of cinema with cast of 50 French actors, including Johnny Hallyday and Academy Award winner Jean Dujardin.

The festival, which will be held at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, will showcase a record 82 films, television series and, for the first time, web series. A total of 70 of these will be in competition for Colcoa awards.

The cinema competition will close on May 2, with the North American premiere of Eric Lavaine’s new romantic comedy, “You Choose,” starring Alexandra Lamy.

“Colcoa will reach a new level in 2017 with two new categories – a virtual reality program and web series competition – added to the Cinema, Television, and Shorts competitions,” said François Truffart, executive producer and artistic director. “These two new popular formats offer more opportunities to showcase the creativity of French producers and filmmakers as well as the diversity of French production.”

The lineup includes titles from established writer/directors, including Marco Bellocchio (“Sweet Dreams”), Nicolas Boukhrief (“The Confession”), Stephane Brizet (“A Woman’s Life”), Bruno Dumont (“Slack Bay”), Lisa Azuelos (“Dalida”), Philippe Lioret (“A Kid”), Edouard Baer (“Open at Night”), Marie-Camille Mansion-Chaar (“Heaven Will Wait”), Hugo Gelin (“Two is a Family”), Philippe Lachaud (“Alibi.com”), and Dany Boon (“R.A.I.D. Special Unit”).

The festival will also present the work of newcomers such as Nicolas Bedos (“Mr. & Mrs. Adelman”), Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir (“Step by Step”), Morgan Simon (“Taste the Ink”), Anne-Gaëlle Daval (“Ladies”), Emmanuel Courcol (“Ceasefire”) and Ludovic and Zoran Boukherman (“Willy 1”).

Actors Patrick Bruel (“A Bag of Marbles”), Lambert Wilson (“The Odyssey”), Alexandra Lamy (“You Choose”), Dora Tillier (“Mr. & Mrs. Adelman”), and Sveva Alviti (“Dalida”) will also be in attendance at the festival.

The festival includes the Happy Hour Talks, a series of panels presented in association with Variety (April 25-29) that are free to the general public. The final panel will be dedicated to French film composer, Jean-Claude Petit, who will meet the audience on April 29.

This year’s TV lineup include the fantasy thriller “Transfer” (Season 1); thriller “The Frozen Dead” (Glacé) (Season 1); political thriller “Baron Noir” (Season 1); drama “Manon 20 Years” (mini series); comedy “Beautiful Loser” (Season 1); and thriller “Midnight Sun” (Season 1). The category will also include four recently awarded TV dramas: “Box 27,” “Plessis’ Girls,” “Nadia” and “Marion Forever 13.”

The festival is funded by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a partnership of the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Picture Association, France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music, and the Writers Guild of America West with the support of L’ARP (France’s Association of Authors, Directors, and Producers), the CNC, the Los Angeles Film and TV Office of the French Embassy, TV France International, and Unifrance.