Running Jan. 14-Feb. 14, this year’s MyFrenchFilmFestival, an online fest organized by France’s film-TV promotional body UniFrance, will mark its 12th edition with a more diversified slate and a greater international push.
Showcasing festival gems, animated crowd-pleasers and outré genre fare – all subtitled in 15 languages – the 13 features and 17 shorts of this year’s selection will reach home viewers via 70 partner platforms as well on MyFrenchFilmFestival, where all the shorts will be available to screen free of charge.
Though ranging in presentational style from horror-comedy to bittersweet drama, the 10 films in this year’s feature competition often share similar thematic through lines, with nearly half of them looking at youth struggles from one angle or another. While Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma’s werewolf thriller “Teddy” tackles late teen growing pains through a more genre prism, Kamir Aïnouz’s “Honey Cigar” does so as a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale; when exploring young adult malaise, directors Guillaume Brac and Nine Antico find different notes to play with their respective comedies “All Hands on Deck” and “Playlist.”
Meanwhile non-fiction filmmakers David Dufresne and Philippe Béziat offer wholly different definitions of social unrest: while Dufresne challenges state power with “The Monopoly of Violence,” Béziat channels restlessness itself with his hip-hip dance doc “Gallant Indies.”
Rounding out the competition are Elie Wajeman’s urban thriller “The Night Doctor,” Chloé Mazlo’s quirky period piece “Skies of Lebanon,” Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balbon’s family drama “Madly in Life” and Rémi Chayé’s “Calamity” – an animated adventure following the young Calamity Jane.
“If MyFrenchFilmFestival was, at one time, more limited to auteur and art-house films, we’ve since expanded the selection,” said Quentin Deleau, head of digital distribution at UniFrance. “We’ve seen an evolution in our offer, with more rights holders showing confidence in us, offering us a greater number of films from a greater variety of genres – and we’re thrilled for that.”
Deleau points to this year’s jury – which features directors Joachim Lafosse (“The Restless”), Santiago Mitre (“Paulina”), and Filippo Meneghetti (“Two of Us”), alongside actor Daphné Patakia (“Benedetta”) and sound engineer Michelle Couttolenc (“Sound of metal”) – as an example of the festival’s push to include a wider array of voices and talents, to widen its scope.
Deleau also points to new platform partners in Taiwan, Cambodia and Greece, new subtitling options in Mandarin, Arabic, Greek, Turkish and Hungarian, and a more bullish social media campaign as examples of this edition’s continued growth. “New distribution models create new opportunities,” Deleau said. “This more diversified selection alongside our new language offerings and partner platforms will only expand our reach.”
MYFRENCHFILMFESTIVAL 2022
FEATURE FILM COMPETITION
“All Hands on Deck” (“À l’abordage”), Guillaume Brac
“Calamity,” Rémi Chayé
“Gallant Indies” (“Indes galantes”), Philippe Béziat
“Honey Cigar” (“Cigare au miel”), Kamir Aïnouz
“Madly in Life” (“Une vie démente”), Ann Sirot & Raphaël Balboni
“The Monopoly of Violence” (“Un pays qui se tient sage”), David Dufresne
“The Night Doctor” (“Médecin de nuit”), Elie Wajeman
“Playlist,” Nine Antico
“Skies of Lebanon” (“Sous le ciel d’Alice”), Chloé Mazlo
“Teddy,” Ludovic & Zoran Boukherma
OUT OF COMPETITION
“Beyond the Horizon” (“Le milieu de l’horizon”), Delphine Lehericey
“Nadia, Butterfly,” Pascal Plante
“The Lover” (“L’amant”), Jean-Jacques Annaud
SHORT FILM COMPETITION
“The Demons of Dorothy” (“Les demons de Dorothy”), Alexis Langlois
“Dustin,” Naïla Guiguet
“Erratum,” Giulio Callegar
“Hold Me Tight,” Mélanie Robert-Tourneur
“Horacio,” Caroline Cherrier
“Love Hurts,” Elsa Rysto
“Malabar,” Maximilian Badier-Rosenthal
“Ourse,” Nicolas Birkenstock
“The Right Words” (“Haut les cours”), Adrian Moyse Dullin
“The Ugly Ducklings” (“Les vilains petits canards”), Anton Balekdjan
SHORT FILM OUT OF COMPETITION
“An Eye For an Eye” (“Oeil pour oeil”), Thomas Boileau, Alan Guimont, Robin Courtoise, Mathieu Lecroq, Malcolm Hunt, and François Briantais
“Astralium,” Lucie Andouche
“Mido and the Instrumals” (“Mido et les instrumeaux”), Roman Guillanton
“Moon” (“Lune”), Zoé Pelchat
“Oldschool” (“À l’ancienne”), Yasmine Bahechar
“Omnibus,” Sam Karmann
“Treasure” (“Trésor”), Alexandre Manzanares, Guillaume Cosenza, Philipp Merte, and Silvan Moutte-Roulet
