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%.
If you've been travelling past the Champ de Mars the past few days you might have noticed an impressive array of flags, cheering crowds and a general festival atmosphere surrounding a make-shift stand and football pitch.
The reason is the Homeless World Cup, which has been taking place in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower since Sunday, the eight edition of the annual football tournament for homeless or otherwise socially disadvantaged players. 64 countries are battling it out over the course of the week, culminating in the grand final this Sunday 28 August.
48 teams are taking part in the men's tournament, while the women's competition, now in it's second year of existence, features teams representing 16 countries.
Swimming isn’t really the same in summer unless you can do it outside. But where can one possibly hope to find outdoor swimming in central Paris?
There are 30 or so public swimming pools located within the Périphérique, all very well priced at around 3 Euros for a one-off entry. However, most of them are serious indoor exercise areas; many boast hostile 70’s facades; and attract such little publicity that most visitors to the capital wouldn’t know a Parisian pool if it was staring them in the face.
All but the Piscine Josephine Baker. The only swimming pool to be built in Paris in the last 18 years, which is spectacularly set on the River Seine. It floats on the river, just next to the Quai François Mauriac and the retractable roof allows for prime sunbathing territory. Priced at a relatively modest 5 euros for a 2 hour dip and open until 10-11pm during the week, it is surely the jewel in the crown of Parisian swimming pools.
A trip to Auteuil racecourse can feel a bit like going to a village greyhound race, in Brittany, in the 1970's. Taking a bus out to the track with Paris' oldest and smelliest racing enthusiasts, all peering at a well creased Equipe or Figaro, incredibly folded into a small rectangle, you'd easily forget you were 3 km from the most visited tourist city in the world.
Arriving at Auteuil, one descends into a 200 metre underground pass, which brings you right up in the middle of the course. Entrance costs about as much as it did in the 1970's - about 5 euros.
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