The 2011 RiverRun International Film Festival, held April 8-17 this year in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Festival will feature a spotlight on “Contemporary French Masters,” showcasing some of France’s most important films and filmmakers of the last decade.
The program will include eight seminal French films of the new millennium that have received widespread critical acclaim and major international awards while remaining unknown to a majority of American audiences. Featured filmmakers include: Olivier Assayas, Jacques Audiard, Laurent Cantet, Claire Denis, Arnaud Desplechin, Abdel Kechiche, François Ozon and Nicolas Philibert.
This is the second year in a row that RiverRun has included a country-specific spotlight in its program. In 2010, RiverRun featured a retrospective on the history of Mexican cinema, with films from the past 60 years. As with last year’s program on Mexican cinema, RiverRun will again bring in recognized film scholars to speak before each film in the program and provide a context for its importance.
“We’ve seen some amazing talents emerge from France in the past decade,” said Andrew Rodgers, RiverRun’s Executive Director. “This year’s spotlight showcases what we think are some of the most interesting French filmmakers working today. Although the filmmakers we’ve selected are at very different stages in their careers – some have emerged in the last ten years, whereas others have been around for two or even three decades – all of them hold a masterful place in cinema and are among the brightest talents of our times. In curating this program we looked at each one’s singularity and specificity, but we also measured the films against each other to create variety and balance. Thus, the eight films in the program range from comedies to dramas to genre films to musicals to documentaries.”
The films in RiverRun’s 2011 Contemporary French Masters Spotlight program include:
RiverRun will announce its full lineup of films, panels and parties at a private ceremony on March 8, with tickets going on sale March 9. For more information about the RiverRun International Film Festival, visit www.riverrunfilm.com.
