Ohio Wesleyan to Host Tournées French Film Festival
Catherine Deneuve and Nemo Schiffman in ‘On My Way.’ (Photo courtesy of Cohen Media Group)
DELAWARE, Ohio – Ohio Wesleyan University will host its first Tournées French Film Festival between March 27 and April 16. Admission is free, and all screenings will begin at 7 p.m. in Benes Room B of OWU’s Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave., Delaware.
The films will be presented in French with English subtitles. Ohio Wesleyan students and faculty will lead post-screening discussions. The six films in the festival were selected by students in a French composition class taught by assistant professor Ana Oancea, Ph.D., who earned grant funding to support the series.
Films to be shown during Ohio Wesleyan’s first Tournées French Film Festival are:
March 27 – “In the House” (2013). Sixteen-year-old Claude stirs the interest of his literature teacher, Germain, with a well-crafted essay for an assignment about “My Last Weekend.” Claude details a Saturday spent helping a classmate with math homework, but the budding wordsmith is intrigued by his friend’s close-knit family, particularly his mother. (OWU students will lead the post-screening discussion.)
March 31 – “The Past” (2013). Set in a working-class suburb of Paris, Marie lives in a cramped house with three children, her two daughters and the young son of her boyfriend, Samir, whom she hopes to marry. But before the couple considers wedding plans, Marie must finalize her divorce from her estranged husband, Ahmad, who flies into Paris from Tehran for the court procedure. (Susan Gunasti, Ph.D., assistant professor of religion, will lead the post-screening discussion.)
April 3 – “Grand Illusion” (1937). Set during World War I, this film was shot just three years before the beginning of World War II. It examines the relationships that form among a group of French officers held in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Within the detention center, divisions of class, religion, and nationality increasingly cease to matter. (Marty Hipsky, Ph.D., professor of English, will lead the post-screening discussion.)
April 6 – “On my Way” (2013). This film was written for Catherine Deneuve, who rarely appears as loose and vibrant. The iconic actress plays Bettie, a former beauty queen partial to subdued leopard-print blouses. Crowned Miss Brittany in 1969, she’s never left the region, where she runs a bistro and lives with her mother. After learning that her longtime married lover has taken up with a 25-year-old, Bettie walks out during the lunch rush, her head-clearing getaway turning into a nearly weeklong road trip through rural France. (Mary Anne Lewis Ph.D., assistant professor of modern foreign languages, will lead the post-screening discussion.)
April 13 – “Augustine” (2012). After an inexplicable seizure renders half her face paralyzed, 19-year-old Augustine is sent to neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot’s clinic in Paris. The doctor, considered an authority on “hysteria,” selects Augustine to be one of the prized patients – under hypnosis, and often naked – used in his demonstrations to other physicians about the possible biological causes of this exclusively female mental disorder. (Assistant professor Oancea will lead the post-screening discussion.)
April 16 – “Grigris” (2013). Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun has returned to his native homeland of Chad time and again to tell stories played out against the near-constant civil war and economic hardship that impact this former French colony. His latest film opens at a disco in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, where Souleymane – nicknamed “Grigris” – dazzles the crowd with his spectacular dance moves. His fans don’t seem to mind his paralyzed leg, particularly Mimi, a prostitute who recognizes a kindred soul in the exuberant but marginalized dancer. (Randy Quaye, Ph.D., associate professor of black world studies, will lead the post-screening discussion.)
The Tournées Film Festival is a program of the New York-based FACE Foundation, in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, which aims to bring French cinema to American college and university campuses. The festival is supported by the embassy, the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée, the Franco-American Cultural Fund, the Florence Gould Foundation, Campus France USA, and Highbrow entertainment. The OWU screenings also are supported by the OWU Office of Academic Affairs and Department of Modern Foreign Languages.
For questions about the festival, contact Oancea at aioancea@owu.edu. Learn more about OWU’s Department of World Languages & Cultures at https://www.owu.edu/academics/departments-programs/department-of-world-languages-cultures/.
Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers 86 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Ohio Wesleyan combines a challenging, internationally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities to connect classroom theory with real-world experience. OWU’s 1,750 students represent 46 U.S. states and territories and 43 countries. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.