The 22nd edition of the French Film Festival will take place from March 20 – 31, 2025 with screenings at cinematheques throughout the country in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Herzliya, Holon, Rosh Pina, Sderot, Dimona and the Annis Center in Yafo. The festival is the initiative of Eden Cinema Ltd. and its CEO, Carolyn Boneh, in collaboration with the Institut Francais, and with the support of Unifrance. Boneh, in collaboration with Guillaume Mainguet, the attaché for cinema and audiovisual affairs at the Institut Francais in Tel Aviv have curated a diverse program of films, culled from the best of current French cinema. Screening dates and times may be found on the cinematheque websites.
The festival’s opening film will be En Fanfare (The Marching Band), directed by Emmanuel Courcol. The film stars Benjamin Lavernhe as Thibaut, a renowned orchestra conductor who learns that he has leukemia. In the search for a bone marrow donor, a DNA test reveals that he was adopted, and has a biological brother, Jimmy. Jimmy (Pierre Lottin) has grown up in an environment and social class very different from that of Thibaut and works in a factory. However, it appears that the two brothers share a common interest in music, as Jimmy plays the trombone in a local marching band. When the band loses its conductor, Thibaut takes on the role, and the brothers have a chance to get to know one another.
The festival presents a bountiful harvest of French films annually to Israeli audiences. This year’s program offers a range of films, from drama to comedy, focusing on family, relationships, social issues, adolescence and old age.
Closing the festival will be Le Roman de Jim (Jim’s Story), directed by Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu. Based on the eponymous novel by Pierric Bailey, Jim’s story begins before he was born. His mother Florence (Laetitia Dosch), six months pregnant from her relationship with a married man, runs into a former co-worker Aymeric (Karim Leklou). The two connect, and decide to become a family, raising Jim together – an idyll that is dramatically interrupted when Jim’s biological father reappears.
Relationships are at the heart of La Prisonniere de Bordeaux (Visiting Hours), directed by Patricia Mazuy. Isabelle Huppert and Hafsia Herzi (The Rapture – Le Ravissement), two strong actors, anchor this film, portraying two very different women trapped by a similar predicament – their partners are currently incarcerated. Alma (Huppert), a former dancer, is the wife of a wealthy, philandering surgeon, who wanders lonely and aimlessly through the rooms of her enormous, luxurious home, between visits to her indifferent husband. On one such visit, Alma observes Mina (Herzi), who, on encountering a bureaucratic block, resorts to wily tactics to try to get in to see her husband. Amused, or perhaps just bored, Alma reaches out to Mina, and the two form a friendship of sorts.
Laetitia Dosch, who portrays Florence in the festival’s closing film, Le Roman de Jim, makes her directorial debut in Le Procès du Chien (Dog on Trial). Dosch, who co-wrote the screenplay with Anne-Sophie Bailly, stars as Avril Lucciani, an idealistic lawyer who takes on the most hopeless of cases. On the verge of being fired – because she always loses in court – she finds she can’t say no to defending Cosmos (Kodi), a dog who has bitten several people, disfiguring one woman’s face. If the court rules against the dog’s owner, Dariuch Michovski (François Damiens), then not only will he have to pay a hefty fine, the dog, Cosmos, will be put down. Taking on the case, Avril argues for trying Cosmos as an individual – which makes this a very amusing film, yet also raises the issue of how we humans treat our fellow canine creatures.
The full program of films may be found on the cinematheques websites.
