A special evening organized by the Francophone Short Films Festival in Harlem.
Madeleine, Raquel Sancinetti, 2023, 15’, Québec/Canada
Every week, Raquel (41), a Brazilian immigrant, visits her friend Madeleine (107) in her retirement home in Montreal and tries to convince her to leave the house. The old woman always refuses, having nothing to do outside. Raquel doesn’t give up and finds a way to take Madeleine on a road trip to the sea. The result is a journey that plays with reality and fiction and reflects upon life, death, and the certainty that there is always something to learn.
Dream on, Leon, Roger Gariepy, 2021, 8’, Québec/Canada
Léon is old; his body is letting him down. And so, he sleeps. Yet, above all, Léon dreams. Of love and sausages, of freedom and running wild. A real dog’s life
The Botanist, Floriane Zoundi, 2022, 9’, Burkina-Faso
A specialist in tropical plants, Rayann, 32, is a brilliant scientist with an exemplary career. But he loses his family in a terrorist attack. Since then, Rayann has lived away from the world until the day he is taken hostage in his house by terrorists pursued by the authorities. He plans to neutralize them out of survival instinct using his knowledge of plants.
D’un feu secret, A.T.Bonaiuto, 2023, 4’, USA (Animation)
This is a Baroque piece by Michel Lambert, written in the 1600s,sung here by French-American jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Grâce, Johanna Makabi, 2022, 14’, France (Fiction)
Grâce, eight years old, hates her neighborhood, hates cheerleading, and has decided to join her father in space today.
Those without whom the earth would not be the earth, David Shongo, 2022, 5’, Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the town of Kipushi, next to the large city of Lubumbashi, we discover an artificial desert. This barren land, colored with different shades of pastel and decorated with waste, is distinguished by its paradoxical beauty. It is the result of years of pollution caused by the exploitation of Katanga’s first mine the result of years of pollution due to exploitation of Katanga’s first mine. This barren land, colored. In this environment,.
Ya la Terre (This is Land) , Nadine Otsobogo, 2023, 9’, Gabon
THIS IS LAND tells the story of the link between Brice, a young Gabonese farmer, and the land he cultivates in the surroundings of Libreville. In this environment,, increasing urbanization threatens agricultural land. Through its narration, the film explores themes of transmission and the relationship between man and nature, offering a view into the daily life of a farmer in the city.
La vie en prose (Life in prose), Cidic Frank Mboumi Kokmegne, 2022, 9’, Cameroon, Cidic Frank Mboumi Kokmegne, 2022, 9’, Cameroun (Animation)
Dream is a young man passionate about art and motivated by the burning desire to become a famous painter. After a long journey strewn with failures, he found himself on the verge of depression, immersed in a multitude of questions. One day, during a visit to an art museum, Dream is transported inside a painting. There, he undertakes a fantastic journey, at the end of which he promises to hold on to his dream.
La vérité sur Alvert (The truth about Alvert), the last dodo, Nathan Clément, 2022, 17’, Réunion-France/Switzerland
On the island of Reunion, Lunet and his grandfather Dadabé set on a quest to turn a hen into a dodo bird whose magic feathers might save the boy’s seriously ill mother.
D’une peinture à…. l’autre, (From one painting… to another), George Schwizgebel, 2023, 3’, Switzerland-France
Two paintings that relate to each other as far as they represent a woman of color in the 19th and 20th centuries. Olympia (1863) by Edouard Manet is a painting in which we see a naked woman staring confidently at the viewer and behind her, a black maid holding a bouquet no doubt offered by an admirer. As a reply to Olympia, Félix Vallotton painted La Blanche et la Noire (1913), which shows a young naked white woman and next to her a dressed black woman, probably her partner, who is smoking a cigarette.
Followed by Q. & A.
Moderated by Binita Mehta, Professor of French Emerita at Manhattanville College, With Julie Deffet (Cinema school New York Film Academy, USA: Nathalie Berger (Professeur Département de Cinéma HEAD, Genève, Suisse)