Paris Romantic Film Festival

From 11 to 17 February, enjoy a selection of romantic films with English subtitles offered in four cinemas in Paris (Le Balzac (Champs-Elysées, 8^th), Le Nouveau Latina (Marais, 4^th), le Reflet Médicis (Quartier Latin, 5^th) et le Studio 28 (Montmartre, 18^th)).

On the Balzac cinema programme  :

Wednesday, 11 February
11:00am : « Jules et Jim» (Jules and Jim) , by François Truffaut (1962, 1:45).
With Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre.
Original French version with English subtitles..
The film is set before, during and after the Great War in several different parts of France, Austria, and Germany. Jules (Oskar Werner) is a shy writer from Austria who forges a friendship with the more extroverted Jim (Henri Serre). They share an interest in the world of the arts and the Bohemian lifestyle. Early in the movie, they become entranced with a statue of a goddess, smiling serenely. After encounters with several women, they meet the free-spirited, capricious Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a doppelganger for the statue with the serene smile. Although she begins a relationship with Jules, both men are affected by her presence and her attitude toward life.

Thursday, 12 February
11:00am : « Le dernier métro » (The Last Metro), by François Truffaut (1980, 2:10).
With Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Poiret.
Original French version with English subtitles..
Set during the German occupation of Paris during the Second World War, it tells the story of a Jewish theatre director and his Gentile wife, who struggles to keep him concealed from the Nazis in their cellar while she performs his former job. As in Truffaut's earlier film Jules et Jim, there is a love triangle between the three principal characters: Marion Steiner (Deneuve), her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennet) and Bernard Granger (Depardieu), an actor in the theatre's latest production…

Friday, 13 February
11:00am : « Ariane » (Love in the Afternoon), by Billy Wilder (1957, 2:10).
With Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier.
Original English version with French subtitles.
Maurice Chevalier plays a private detective who lives in Paris. Audrey Hepburn plays his daughter Ariane, a student of the cello. Hepburn takes an interest in her father's case files and soon becomes enamored of American playboy Frank Flannigan (Cooper); jealous husbands frequently hire Chevalier to track Cooper. When Hepburn learns of one husband's intention to kill Cooper, she finds him and warns him. She is eager to start a relationship but fears her inexperience will ruin her chances with him, so she pretends to be a mysterious woman of the world. Eventually Cooper hires Chevalier to find out more about her. The story resolves as Hepburn's innocence inspires Cooper to reform and marry her.

Saturday, 14 February
11:00am : « 2 days in Paris », by Julie Delpy (2007, 1:36).
With Adam Golberg and Julie Delpy.
Original English version with French subtitles.
Marion (Delpy) is a French photographer living in New York with her neurotic chain-smoking American boyfriend, Jack (Goldberg). After a markedly unromantic trip to Venice which was originally conceived to re-ignite their damaged relationship, the couple take a night train to Paris to pick up Marion's cat from her parents (Delpy and Pillet) and decide to stay for two days. Jack is surprised to learn how many ex lovers Marion has stayed in touch with and becomes increasingly uncomfortable due to language barriers and a multitude of old flames. Meanwhile, Marion wrestles with her own insecurities about love, relationships, and her impulsive nature.

Sunday, 15 February
11:00am : « Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé » (Not Here to Be Loved), by Stéphane Brizé (2005, 1:33).
With Patrick Chesnais, Anne Consigny, Georges Wilson.
Original French version with English subtitles.
Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé" ("I'm Not Here to Be Loved") is a charming French film about a budding romance between Jean-Claude, laconic 50-year-old process server and forty-year-old woman Françoise. As they meet each other in tango lesson class, a love story about grown-up people and their romance unfolds with intelligence and hidden passion.

Monday, 16 February
11:00am : « Charade », by Stanley Donen (1963, 1:54).
With Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Original English version with French subtitles.
Regina "Reggie" Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) meets a charming stranger calling himself Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday in Megève. She returns to Paris, planning to ask husband Charles for a divorce, but finds all of their possessions gone. The police notify her that Charles has been murdered, thrown from a train. They give Regina her husband's travel bag…She is summoned to the U.S. Embassy, where she meets CIA agent Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau). He informs her Charles was involved in a theft during World War II. Reggie recognizes the oddballs from the funeral in pictures shown to her by Bartholomew. He insists she has the money, even if she doesn't know where it is. Peter appears and offers to help her figure out what to do. Reggie becomes attracted to him, even though he keeps changing his name (simultaneously amusing and confusing her) and unabashedly admits he's after her late husband's money as well.

Tuesday, 17 February
11:00am : « Les Demoiselles de Rochefort » (The Young Girls of Rochefort), by Jacques Demy (1967, 2:04).
With Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin.
Original French version with English subtitles.
A musical film directed by Jacques Demy, takes place over the course of one weekend in the seaside town of Rochefort, where a fair is coming to the town square. The story centers on twin sisters Delphine (Deneuve) and Solange (Dorléac) — Delphine teaches ballet classes and Solange gives music lessons for a living, but each longs to find her ideal love and a life outside of Rochefort...

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