This week at SFC - Paris Je T'aime

BUILDING 7 (back stairs)
FERNANDES INDUSTRIAL CENTRE
EASTERN MAIN ROAD
LAVENTILLE
PORT OF SPAIN
http://studiofilmclub.blogspot.com/

Our screenings are FREE and all are welcome.

doors open 7:30 - film starts 8:15

Paris Je T'aime is a collection of short films set in paris and directed by such celebrated directors as the Coen brothers, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Wes craven, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne and Olivier Assayas. Each of the 18 short film shows Paris in a different light, but all the vignettes aim to celebrate the most famous and cosmopolitan city in France.

Also this Thursday
Time: 6-7pm at the Studio Film Club foyer.

UWI student Michelle Isava will be presenting and recording a performance art piece for her art and design final year project entitled "the machine" - A play about the relationship between human and machine.
The play consists of 6 scenes with three major themes:
Becoming the machine
Reacting to the machine
Fatalism.
Technology and mass media plays the major role of "the machine", and forms the underlying structure of the play.


Paris je t'aime / 2006 / Multiple directors / 120 mins / France / Liechtenstein / Switzerland

Paris, the city of love. Twenty filmmakers will bring their own personal touch, underlining the wide variety of styles, genres, encounters and the various atmospheres and lifestyles that prevail in the neighborhoods of paris.

The movies are as diverse as the filmmakers themselves, who hail from around the world. Each director tells the story of an unusual encounter in one of the city's neighborhoods, portraying aspects of the city rarely seen in feature films. Family, race, religion, crime, love, death, even angels and vampires -- all can be found in this ultimately intertwining narrative.

Racial tensions stand next to paranoid visions of the city seen from the perspective of an American tourist. A young foreign worker moves from her own domestic situation into her employer's bourgeois environs. An American starlet finds escape as she is shooting a movie. A man is torn between his wife and his lover. A young man working in a print shop sees and desires another young man. A father grapples with his complex relationship with his daughter. A couple tries to add spice to their sex life.

The all-star ensemble cast includes international stars such as Natalie Portman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Fanny Ardant, Elijah Wood, Nick Nolte, Bob Hoskins, Juliette Binoche, Emily Mortimer, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Rufus Sewell, Barbet Schroeder, Ludivine Sagnier, Gena Rowlands, Miranda Richardson and Steve Buscemi.


The stronger entries include Gurinder Chadha's Quais De Seine, which follows a young white Parisian boy's crush on a beautiful Muslim girl; the Coens' Tuileries, starring Buscemi as a Yankee tourist who makes eye contact with the wrong people at the Metro Station; Place Des Victoires (directed by Nobuhiro Suwa), about an inconsolable mother (Juliette Binoche) who has an encounter with the ghost of her young son who died the week before; and Sylvain Chomet's Tour Eiffel, which follows two mimes who fall in love.

There's also Pigalle, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, about two old lovers (Bob Hoskins and Fanny Ardant) looking to spice things up; Wes Craven's P¿re-Lachaise, featuring Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell and the ghost of Oscar Wilde; Faubourg Saint-Denis, directed by Tom Tykwer, about an American actress (Natalie Portman) and her blind French boyfriend; Frederic Auburtin & Gerard Depardieu's Quartier Latin, starring Gena Rowlands (who also scripted) and Ben Gazzara as two aging spouses saying good-bye before their divorce is finalized; and Alexander Payne's, Arrondissement, about an overweight, middle-aged American woman (Margo Martindale) who comes to terms with loneliness while on vacation.

Vincenzo Natali's Quartier De La Madeleine is the biggest oddity; it features Elijah Wood as a young man who has a strange but sensual encounter with a female vampire (Olga Kurylenko). Olivier Assayas' Quartier Des Enfants Rouges -- arguably the worst entry -- is a pointless vignette about a partying American actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal) looking to score drugs from the pusher who pines after her. The most surprisingly weak entry is Alfonso Cuaron's Parc Monceau, shot in one long take and starring Nick Nolte as a father taking a walk with his grown-up daughter.

Paris Je T'aime is a poignant and ultimately rewarding experience. It offers something for everyone, and provides an insightful, multi-cultural look at the City of Lights.

You are welcome to stay late for our weekly post filmclub lime... Food, Drinks and Music.