Helene Roos: Theme of this year's French Film Festival is the image of Paris

The theme of this year's French Film Festival (FFF) is the image of the French capital - "Paris, toujours ...", director of the French Institute in Bucharest Helene Roos said on Wednesday, at the opening of the cultural event. 

In May, with the Romania - France Season in full swing, the French Film Festival is celebrating its 23rd anniversary with a superlative edition: more films, more guests, more participating cities, Helene Roos said at the headquarters of the institute. 

She went on to detail that the festival is an opportunity to discover the entire palette of hues of the French cinema - comedies, dramas, historical or poetic films, action films, alongside documentaries and animations, author's films as well as films for the general public. 

The French Film Festival means 23 editions, it means one of the longest living festivals in Romania, and it means focusing on the latest French productions and on the most interesting, we hope, films for the audience, which most often do not get in Romanian theaters. It is therefore a unique opportunity to watch these films, as the French cinematography is one of the most prolific and well-known not only in Europe, but also in the world, said festival co-programmer Ioana Dragomirescu. 

The festival features 146 screenings, with the event running for the first time in 13 cities: Bucharest (May 8 - 16), Cluj-Napoca (May 9 - 12), Timisoara (May 9 - 13), Iasi (May 11 - 14), Arad (May 9 - 11), Brasov (May 9 - 11), Braila (May 10 - 12), Buzau (May 9 - 10), Constanta (May 16 - 19) , Pitesti (May 16 - 19), Sfantu Gheorghe (May 16 - 19), Sinaia (May 16 - 19) and Suceava (May 10 - 11). 

The 23rd French Film Festival opened in Bucharest with the film "Un Peuple et Son Roi/One Nation, One King", in the presence of director Pierre Schoeller. 

Ioana Dragomirescu said that the festival has four main sections: Competition - dedicated to young directors - where six films will vie for the Audience Award; Panorama - a slightly broader retrospective of what was best in French cinema in the previous year; the Retrospective dedicated to Claire Simon, a prolific and atypical French producer, who will come to Romania for the first time; and Cahiers du Cinema Week, which will include a thematic selection focused on the subject of the Romanian muse - "La muse Roumaine", where films will be shown that have an actress of Romanian origin in the cast, but which got remarked in France - the selection was made by critic Joachim Lepastier, a stable contributor to the French Film Festival. 

"Le Grand Bain/Sink or Swim" (directed by Gilles Lellouche) will close the Festival in Bucharest and in Timisoara, where it will be screened after the presentation of the project for the rehabilitation of the "Studio" art cinema, in the presence of French Ambassador to Romania Michele Ramis. 

All the films are presented in French with Romanian subtitles.