MONMOUTH – Western Oregon University will host a series of French films over the course of four weeks, as part of the third annual Tournées Festival. Each film is free and open to the public, and will be shown at 7 p.m. in room 211 of the Instructional Technology Center.

The first film, “Backstage,” will be shown on Tuesday, October 30. It is about Lucie, an overly zealous teenage fan of famous pop diva Lauren Waks. As a way to cope with her bleak small-town life with her mother and younger brother, she revolves her life solely around her adoration for Lauren. One day, a chance situation allows Lucie to meet Lauren and gain access to the star`s completely unstable life. Gradually their lives intertwine as the film delves into the emotional dependency on both sides of cultural celebrity. On the one hand Lucie who uses her idol to find self-valorisation, on the other hand Lauren clutches on to her follower with monstrous avidity. The actresses base their performances on physical interpretation: body language and gestures are turned into a choregraphy. Using original music recorded by Emmanuelle Seigner, playing Lauren, director Emmanuelle Bercot explores her fascination with the phenomenon of fans, their irrational behavior and desperate passion.

On Tuesday, November 6, viewers can watch “Chats Perches (The Case of the Grinning Cat),” in which French cinema-essayist Chris Marker reflects on art, culture and politics at the start of the new millennium. In November 2001, he became intrigued by the sudden appearance of grinning yellow cat paintings on Paris buildings and public surfaces, and began to document the mysterious materializations of this charming feline. Purportedly looking to solve the mystery of this unknown artist, dubbed M. Chat, the filmmaker uses it instead as a springboard to examine the city's changing social climate -- from the pro-American feelings generated shortly after Sept. 11, to the anti-Bush and Iraq War demonstrations that have become so prevalent. He also looks at the demonstrations that took place during the 2002 French election that saw right-wing centrist Jacques Chirac defeat right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen. Eventually, the creator of the grinning cats is revealed to be an art collective known as Mr. Cat whose members are shown painting a massive representation of their mascot on the plaza in front of the Pompidou Center. Marker concludes with thoughts on the vital importance of such expressions of art and imagination in our public lies, echoing the May’68 slogan that “La poésie est dans la rue” (“Poetry is in the streets”).

The third film will be shown on Tuesday, November 13. For more information on this film please contact film studies and geography professor Shaun Huston at 503-838-8296 or hustons@wou.edu.

Tuesday, November 20 will feature “La Plafond de Verre (The Glass Ceiling).” is an American sociological expression referring to the invisible, impalpable barrier that prevents women from reaching the same level as men in their careers. Using this metaphor, Yamina Benguigui examines the integration of immigrants in the workplace. For her, the comparison between immigrants and women is relevant because they face the same challenges: the issue is not necessarily about finding work, but about being hired for positions of responsibility that correspond to their educational backgrounds. The film provides deeply moving testimonies of qualified students who were not called back for job interviews. Some chose to fight for jobs for which they are qualified, others gave up and accepted positions with less or no responsibilities. Yamina Benguigui also interviews experts who discuss the reasons behind discrimination, which include France’s colonial past as well as deeply entrenched corporate practices, and the difficulty that individuals of foreign origins face.

The final film, “Fauteuil D’Orchestre (Avenue Montaigne),” will be shown on Tuesday, November 27. The film centers around Jessica, a beautiful and naive girl from the south-east of France. She is extremely close to her grandmother who continuously repeats the same story: when she was young she managed to move up in the world while working as a cleaning lady in a popular luxury hotel in Paris. One day, Jessica decides to go to Paris and finds a job at a cafe frequented by the "tout Paris". Indeed, it is located on Avenue Montaigne, in the wealthy section of Paris. Her customers include an array of artistic figures. A famous soap-opera actress, Catherine Versen, tries to seduce a major Hollywood director, Sobinski, in the hope of getting the part that she believes will radically change her carreer. Jacques Grunberg, an art lover, is about to sell a lifetime's worth of artworks at an auction. Jean-François Lefort, an illustrious classical pianist, is in the midst of a career crisis and refuses to play in the posh concert halls that have invited him. A social and financial gap separates Jessica from each of the others, but her innocence compensates for all the differences and serves to create a rewarding and profound link between the waitress and her clients.

This series is sponsored locally by the Western Oregon University Film Studies program. The festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC).

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Contact:

Shaun Huston
Film studies and geography professor