C’est La Vie! (Le Sens de la fête)
Veteran wedding planner Max is organising a lavish wedding in a 17th century chateau. It’s no small task, with dozens of people to manage, unreliable electricity, a last-minute musician change, and a demanding groom. Soon, everything is going very wrong indeed! The latest film from Untouchable directors Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano is a gloriously manic French comedy.
Guardians, The (Les Gardiennes)
France, 1915. Hortense and her daughter Solange take over the running of the family farm while the men go off to war. With the harvest approaching, Hortense hires Francine, a young woman who proves herself as an invaluable help. But when Hortense’s son George returns on leave, romance develops between him and Francine, upsetting the natural balance in the process…
The Image That You Missed
Irish filmmaker Donal Foreman grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, through MacCaig's decades-spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Screening Nationwide
Cold War (Zimna wojna)
The new film from Pawel Pawlikowski, the director of the Academy Award-winning Ida, follows the passionate romance between musician Wiktor and beautiful young woman Zula, who meet in a post-war Poland. Told over 15 years and shot in stunning black and white, Cold War won the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993)
This autobiographical first feature explores six-year-old Frida's conflict as she moves to her Uncles farm from Barcelona, following her mother’s death. Struggling to adjust and process her loss, she also has to contend with an annoying new little sister, three year old Anna. The performances of the two children are disarmingly natural in this gorgeous, yet unsentimental film.
Wajib
In Wajib, Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir uses a centuries-old custom as a simple device to explore familial and intergenerational tensions for contemporary Palestinians. Real-life father-and-son Mohammad and Saleh Bakri (The Band’s Visit) infuse their characters with warmth and humour in this poignant yet entertaining drama
52 CinÉireann / Issue 9