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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%.

Women Who Changed India at the Petit Palais

Image: Petit Palais.

Text: Rooksana Hossenally.

The much-awaited exhibition showing some of India’s most high-profile women has reached its final stop in Paris after touring India, Milan, London and Brussels. The collaboration between Reporters sans Frontières and the BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris), the photography agency, Magnum Photos, and the Delhi-based publishers, Zubaan, is a celebration of BNP’s 150-year presence in India.

The exhibition is the second Reporters Sans Frontières project at the Petit Palais after 'Pierre et Alexandra Boulat' last year. Following the success of ‘Paris-Bombay’ at the Centre Pompidou earlier on this year, ‘Women Who Changed India’ is proving to be equally as successful with queues stretching for a mile or so outside the venue. Everyone is rushing to see the six photographers’ works showing how women have become more active in the changing face of India, a country where women have always been, to borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s terminology, the ‘second sex’.

Magnum photographers, Martine Franck, Alex Webb, Patrick Zachmann, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Olivia Arthur and Raghu Rai, seek to underline the cultural and geographic diversity of women in India by showing women in their evolving roles; be it as taxi drivers, lawyers, politicians or film directors. Needless to say that the colourful prints hanging in the Petit Palais’ basement gallery are pleasing to the eye, but one must wonder what this exhibition really means in terms of equality of the sexes: is it necessary to underline the difference between genders in order to encourage equality?

Hotel Thérèse

Text: Susie Hollands

Hotel Thérèse is situated in a fabulous quartier of Paris in a typical building from the 18th century looking onto one that is even more exquisite.  This 3 star hotel is a discreet bonne addresse of well-heeled lawyers, art historians and the fashion crowd. Originally the street was known as rue Hasard, because of the number of gambling dens, and the decadent ambience of pre-revolutionary times still lingers (isn't there a rather well known club echangiste on the same street?).  If you plan to visit the Louvre, attend a performance at the Comédie-Française or simply stroll in the haphazard streets between the avenue de l'opéra and the Palais-Royal, you will love the location.

The understated dècor suits the clientele; muted shades of green, grey and maroon in the wood panelled library encourage one to sink into a club chair and enjoy a drink from the "help-yourself" bar. The lounge area is inviting and has a great library of art books and Paris tomes. The 43 rooms are furnished soberly using dark wood and similar hues to the lounge with the odd zebra stripe for a little cha-cha-cha. 

Le Petit Paris

Text Susie Hollands   Le Petit Paris is a welcome addition to the mid priced hotel options in one of the most sought after areas of the city. Still feeling brand new (opened September 2009) the old Relais de Poste is perfectly situated just 1 minute from the eastern gates of Luxembourg Gardens. It's equally suitable for a lover's weekend or  a family outing  perched at the slightly scruffier (but more fun) end of rue Saint-Jacques just past the Pantheon. Those seeking an authentic Latin Quarter experience will not be disappointed.  This is an unspoiled enclave, one of the cutest sections of the street next to an excellent Cave, cheese shop, bakery and with numerous bookshops for browsing.