A foreign-language film festival celebrating 35 years in Australia is quite an achievement. That honour goes to the Alliance Française French Film Festival (AFFFF), which opens in Brisbane and Sydney on March 5 with a new version of one of the most famous French stories, The Three Musketeers/Les Trois Mousquetaires (pictured). As the French would say, Toutes nos félicitations! (All our) Congratulations!
Film festivals are thriving at the moment. The 2024 Europa! Europa Film Festival, for example, had 47 films this year compared with 29 in 2023 – and that festival’s barely three years old!
The 2024 French Film Festival has 41 films in its line-up, but what’s remarkable about it is its expansion to 15 cities, no less. Among the new locations, if my living memory is anything to go by*, are Bunbury in Western Australia and Renmark and Mount Gambier in South Australia. More details below.
Check out The Alliance Française French Film Festival 2024 trailer, set to a catchy snippet of Sur la planche, the first single from La Femme.
2024 French Film Festival capital city dates
- Sydney: March 5 to April 9
- Brisbane: March 5 to April 2
- Melbourne: March 6 to April 2
- Perth: March 6 to April 2
- Canberra: March 7 to April 2
- Adelaide: March 21 to April 16
- Hobart: April 4-14
Darwin! Où êtes-vous? (Where are you?) Parlez-vous français?
Regional dates and locations
- Byron Bay: March 7-27
- Renmark: March 22 to April 6
- Gold Coast: April 3-16
- Victor Harbor: April 4-10
- Parramatta: April 11-14
- Mount Gambier: April 17-21
- Bunbury: April 18-21
- Bendigo: April 19-21
Films of note at AFFFF24
If the 2024 César Awards are anything to go by, the following should be on your list of ‘must see’ movies at the 2024 French Film Festival:
- The Animal Kingdom/Le Règne Animal – five wins from 12 César Award nominations (best cinematography, best sound, best original music, best costume design and best visual effects).
- All Your Faces/Je Verrai Toujours Vos Visages – one win (best supporting actress) from nine nominations.
- The Three Musketeers/Les Trois Mousquetaires Part 1, D’Artagnan & Part 2, Milady – one win (best production design) from six nominations.
Also screening is The Taste of Things/La Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, which was France’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film award at the 2024 Oscars. It made the Oscar category short list but not the final list, and was nominated for just three César awards, winning none.
It will be interesting to see how it compares to Anatomy of a Fall/Anatomie d’une chute – winner of six Césars and in the running for five major Oscars despite not being officially nominated by the national body. France’s Oscar nomination committee have the taste of egg all over their faces now!
See the full list of films at the 2024 French Film Festival here. M5R
*These days my living memory is not always reliable. Quel dommage! (What a pity)
