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Festival de Cinéma Européen

Image:  Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs
Text:  Susie Kahlich

“Something is wrong with this picture,” says Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin.  “There are excellent films being made across Europe right now, but only Hollywood films dominate what’s released in theatres.”

Fleurantin is the Director General and CEO of the Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs (10-17 December).  Hailed by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety as “the Sundance of Europe,” the alpine festival is only in the third year of its mission to topple the mighty Hollywood.

Paradoxically, Fleurantin talks fast and slick like a Hollywood dealmaker, but he sports the quintessential French uniform: velvet jacket, jeans and mild bemusement that the world would prefer bigger-louder-faster rather than restrained, refined and slow.  Fleurantin throws numbers and percentages at me in such rapid big-loud-fast succession I suspect he’s pulled this part of his speech out every year since the festival’s beginning.  Notably, Fleurantin stresses that European cinema represents only 3.2% of movie theatre entries in France (excluding British film), while American film accounts for almost 50%.

Paris' 20 Best Vintage Clothing Shops

Text + images by Meg Gagnard

Our vintage clothing post has long been one of our readers' favourites. We decided it needed an update, so we called on urban explorer Meg Gagnard of De Quelle planète es-tu? to update the guide, and give a bit more information about each place. Thanks, Meg! – Anne

n. f. FRIPERIE: Vêtements, meubles qui, ayant servi, sont plus ou moins usés. Ce n'est que de la friperie. Marchand de friperie. 

A friperie is a French word for a place that sells second-hand clothing: whether that be high end vintage name brands or basic 5 euro button downs. A lot of the shops play with this word to make it unique for their particular boutique.

Paris is the city of many things, and when it comes to vintage clothing or second hand shops, Paris has got a lot to offer (don’t forget about the flea markets!). Below is a list organized by district, of 20 second-hand shops in Paris. There are many, many more for different styles, decades and budgets that couldn’t fit into a list of a number as small as 20, but please share your favorites in the comments!

Paname Fibres, an interview

 

By Nicola Hebden and Alessandro Zenari

VINGT Paris talks to artist in residence Hannu Karjalainen and curator Philip Tonda three weeks into the Paname Fibres programme.

Find out how the residency process has helped Hannu, what materials he uses to produce his works, and why Les Halles appeals to him so much.

Paname Fibres will be hosting an Open Doors day on Saturday 17th December to showcase Hannu's work during the residency. For more information please contact magazine@vingtparis.com.

To read more about this year's VINGT Paris residency programme, click here.

 

Unspoken Rules of Paris: Friends For Sure

Still from Truffaut's "Jules et Jim"

The bar right outside of Étienne Marcel was crowded. It wasn't crowded in the normal, busy brasserie of the deuxième-kind of way. No, there were people awkwardly standing next to a table full of friends trying to weigh in on the conversation. I was feeling adventurous so I ordered a Ricard (after months and months of practice, I have still to figure out why anyone drinks this). The waitress arrived and with her uniquely central Paris smile asked "le Ricard?". "C'est pour moi" two voices answered. One was mine, the other, came from a short, nappy headed student studying at the École des Beaux Arts.

After excessive rounds of "no please, you take it" my mouth kind of spilled the words "seriously, I don't even like Ricard". There were two things about Clément that I later learned were constants in his life: The fact that he was named Clément; and his charming elevation of spirits into a quasi-vehicle to reach raw artistic material. He did not take my comment lightly. "You will have this Ricard, I will wait for mine, and I will explain why it's good".

Goudemalion: Jean-Paul Goude une Rétrospective

Text + images: Anne S. Ditmeyer, Prêt à Voyager

The first time I ever came into contact with the work of Jean-Paul Goude was through his publicity campaign for Galeries Lafayette that has dotted Parisian metro stations for the past decade. Now, through March 2012, Goudemalion is a retrospective of his work and fantasy worlds taking place at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

The exhibition charts his 40-year career, from childhood drawings to his contemporary vision has taken the form of fashion, photography, illustration, theatrical sequences, films, events and advertising. In the review of his work, is his ability to create thought provoking and eye catching imagery before the era of Photoshop is noteworthy. Glimpses inside his sketchbooks appear throughout the rooms, as a reminder that at the core of all creation is a concept and an idea.  An introduction to the retrospective states: “Goude has always succeed in capturing the spirit of his age and then giving it a lasting form.”

December Film Events

Image: CBS    Text: Susie Kahlich

Considered one of the greatest filmmakers you’ve never heard of, Hungarian Béla Tarr has influenced everyone from director Gus Van Sant to essayist Susan Sontag to actress Tilda Swinton.  Centre Pompidou presents a retrospective of the maestro’s work with its cycle Béla Tarr, L’Alchimiste.  Begins 3 December.

Centre Georges Pompidou
Place Georges Pompidou, 75004 Paris
Métro: Rambuteau

 

London Calling!  Forum des Images kicks off almost two months of London on film, screening everything from very early (slim! with hair!) Hitchcock to Mary Poppins to Julien Temple’s excellent documentary of that iconic Londoner, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten. Begins 7 December. 

Forum des Images
Porte St Eustache, 75001
Métro: Chatelet-Les Halles

 

Institut Polonais Paris hosts its Fourth Annual Week of Polish Cinema with Festival Kinopolska, special Cannes edition: take your pick from the Masters of Polish Cinema, Animation Weekend, Contemporary Fiction, Shorts, and Guide to the Poles, documentaries that give insight into la vie polonaise. Begins 7 December. 

Institut Polonais
31 rue Jean Goujon, 75008
Métro: Alma Marceau

 

La Cinémathèque Française is sending out 2011 with a bang.  December is so jam-packed with good stuff your Christmas shopping may never get done. The month begins with a retrospective of 100 Years of Nikkatsu, the oldest production company in Japan where Japan’s greatest filmmakers forged their careers.  Three wise men? No, just some guys who make iconic films: Eastwood, Spielberg and Altman each get a retrospective of their work.  Stranger bedfellows can indeed be found in the final cycle of the month, Images des Outre-Mer, which includes film, roundtables, and Q&As with visiting filmmakers. Lucky for you, Bercy Village is in running distance so you can make a mad dash for gifts in between screenings.  Begins 7 December.

La Cinémathèque Française
51, rue de Bercy 75012
Métro: Bercy

 

Celebrating the release of Roman Polanski’s latest, Carnage, La Champollion is hosting a Polanski night, featuring Rosemary’s Baby, Repulsion, The Ghost Writer, and Death and the Maiden.  Christmas-y?  Not really.  But sometimes you need a break from all that holiday cheer, n’est-ce pas?  10 December

Le Champollion
51 rue des Ecoles 75005 Paris
Métro: Odéon - Saint-Michel

 

I don’t know about you, but around my appartement nothing says Christmas like old British black & white films.  Musée d’Orsay is of similar mind, with two Yuletide programs: The Way We Were: Victorian England in Cinema, and Reading Dickens, including holiday favorites Oliver Twist (David Lean’s, of course), Great Expectations and – bless their hearts, every one – the 1935 version of Scrooge.  Begins 2 December.

Musée d’Orsay
1, rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007
Métros: Assemblée Nationale, Solferino

Film Review: Inni

Image: Sigur Rós
Text: Susie Kahlich

Concert films are tricky things.  On the one hand, they seem like the next best thing to being there.  But then there’s the rub: the thing about a great concert is you have to be there.  It’s the whole point.  Of course, not everyone in the world can attend every legendary concert: Hendrix at Woodstock, The Who at Kilburn, Prince at, well, anywhere.  So the rest of us schmucks are stuck with concert footage or, to be nice about it, the concert film.

Very few concert films work, mostly because inherent in film is the fourth wall – the very thing that rock & roll exists to tear down.  But sometimes a good director, paired with the right band, breaks through and you get a film like Stop Making Sense (1984), or The Last Waltz (1978), or even Born to Boogie (1972) (which not only had the advantage of a good director, but a director who understood the high of live performance and the caprices of rock & roll fame better than any other director, ever).  Other than these select few and a handful of others, most concert films fall flat into the concert footage category, never rising above a mere documentary recording of something really cool… that you missed.

Inni, the concert film that accompanies Sigur Rós’ 2008 multi-media album of the same name, falls into this second category.  Released in November, the film screened at Commune Image in Saint Ouen as part of the Journée Air d’Islande.  Inni was the day’s highlight with two screenings for Sigur Rós fans.  Moody, stark, shot in grainy black and white (in some places the film stock underwent three post-production processes to create the effect of found archival footage), the film takes you on stage with the boys during their 2008 performance in London’s Alexandra Palace. 

While a few close-ups are striking visual treats – Jónsi’s contorted, wailing face, or Kjarri Sveinsson’s hands coaxing those haunting notes out of the piano keys – most of the footage floats around the empty spaces between performers on stage.  Intercut with actual archival footage of band interviews over the past decade, Inni is more fine arts thesis film than concert film; the director seeming to be focused on being “arty” rather than giving us a true concert experience. The liner notes for the film state that it depicts “how it feels for both band and fan to experience Sigur Rós live,” but therein lies the problem.  It’s impossible to interpret how a fan experiences a live performance because each experience is highly subjective and personal, especially with a group like Sigur Rós.  Keeping the camera almost entirely onstage and at angles no fan will ever get to see at a live show may provide a very intimate portrait from Sigur Rós’ perspective, but the fans are left on the other side of a decidedly opaque fourth wall.

That being said, the Journée Air d’Islande was not all art film and Sigur Rós.  The main café space served an all-day Icelandic brunch that included some delicious, possibly not very Icelandic, brownies.  Icelandic sweaters were on display (reminding me of the Reykjavik airport, where my family used to stock up on sweaters and Toblerone during our layovers to and from Germany), and a very nice lady provided VINGT Paris’ resident Icelander with some proper yarn to darn his heirloom sweater with.  The day started with Rock in Reykjavik (1982), an award-winning documentary about the music scene coming out of Iceland, although the big shows were for screenings of Inni.

Journée Air d’Islande, produced by Sinny & Ooko and Air d’Islande, managed to encompass all the best exports from Iceland over the past 20 years: music, film, sweaters, brownies (sure, why not?) and, best of all, Icelanders.  I think I’ll stick to Sigur Rós live, thanks, but Journée Air d’Islande definitely whetted my appetite for more culture Islandais.

20 Questions with Sylvia Whitman

Sylvia Whitman is the proprietor of book shop Shakespeare & Co.

1. What initially inspired you to move here or visit? 

My Father George Whitman.

2. Earliest Paris memory?

Standing on a street grid and having hot metro air blow up my dress.

3. Best neighbourhood you've ever lived in?

I want to do what the French writer Colette did which is to move every year and try each arrondissement (except maybe I’ll skip the 16th). For now, it would be where I currently live : Etienne Marcel. From my front door, take a left and you get to watch all the fashionistas doing a catwalk on the rue Montorgeuil, take a right and peek into the sex shops on rue St Denis. I like that combination.

4. What's the best meal you've eaten in Paris?

It would have to be that amazing white night meal – it happens every year in a secret location. When I went it was on Place de la Concorde. 8 000 people eating a white meal in white on the Place, it was one of the most civilised, magical meals – I think about it every time I pass Concorde.

5. Sexiest moment you've had in Paris?

A more than romantic kiss in a church kissing someone I shouldn’t.

Cinéma allemand at the Goethe Institute

Image:  Alina Rudnitskaya
Text: Jon Handelman

As part of its on-going Cinema Allémand series, the Goethe Institute presented a 3-day film festival last weekend showing a variety of works picked from the archives of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival.

An oft-explored theme in the world of film, both past and present, is whether a film should be classified as Art, Entertainment, or both.  If a film is entertaining it then begs the question: can it still be art? And if a film is artistic and tackles “important” ideas, can it still be considered entertainment?  (Not to worry dear reader, my mind is reeling as well.) At once maddening, boring, delightful and, dare I say, entertaining, the short films presented throughout the festival demonstrated that Art can be entertaining, Entertainment can be art, and short films—although short—can be boring.

Last Saturday, four films representing over 30 years of eastern European cinema were screened.  Nova Ksiazka (New Book), a 1975 Polish short film, is what I call delightful.  For ten blissful and frenetic minutes the screen is divided into tiny squares, with each square depicting inter-related scenes of city life.  Here the everyday becomes extraordinary.

Independent Boutiques in Paris 9ème: Le Rocketship

Text + Images: Anne Ditmeyer, Prêt à Voyager

As the holidays quickly approach, it's always a good reminder to support local businesses. I'm lucky to call the 9th arrondissement home, which is full of interesting, independent shops, and one of the most recent additions is Le Rocketship. Part design boutique, and part coffee bar, owner Benoît Touche has been dreaming up this project for ages, but only officially opened its doors on October 5th.

The location is prime in the 9th arrondissement, around the corner from Hotel Amour, a block from rue des Martyrs, and just a few steps away from a handful of restaurants with sprawling terraces. Additionally, it's an area full of locals, giving the neighborhood extra charm.