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French film

Driving Madeleine

DRIVING MADELEINE [France], Thursday 25 January, 8pm

By Homepage, Season 25, Winter 2024

Online tickets for DRIVING MADELEINE are sold out. A limited number will be available to purchase on the door.

“Would you mind if we took a quick detour?” – “It’s not on the way, not even close”- “I know, but it’ll take what? Ten minutes? What’s ten minutes out of our lives? It’s nothing.”

A seemingly simple taxi ride across Paris evolves into a profound meditation on the realities of the driver, whose personal life is in shambles, and his fare, an elderly woman whose warmth belies her shocking past.

Madeleine, 92 years old, calls a taxi to take her to the retirement home where she will be living. Charles, a disillusioned driver with a tender heart, agrees to drive by the places that affected Madeleine’s life. Through the streets of Paris, her extraordinary past is revealed. They don’t know it yet, but they will forge a friendship during this drive that will change their lives forever.

It’s this uncommon grit from the director and co-writer Christian Carion that differentiates the movie from the comforts of the “wise ole coot” genre (from The Straight Story to Pixar’s Up). – The Times [UK]

Both of the leads keep it low-key, with 95-year-old Renaud’s unfussy reminiscences dotted with defiant irony, and the initially unforthcoming Boon opening up under her cajoling as naturally as a flower. – The Guardian

Christian Carion offers up a voyage through one person’s memories and depicts a bond developing between a taxi driver and his passenger in a simple and especially human film. – Cineuropa

96% Rotten Tomatoes

  • DRIVING MADELEINE (UNE BELLE COURSE)
  • France, 2022 | Language: French | 1 h 30 min | Cert: CLUB
  • Director: Christian Carion
  • Cast: Line Renaud, Dany Boon, Alice Isaaz
  • Foreign language films are subtitled. 
  • Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • WIRELESS, a short film by Cork filmmaker Brian Dwyer, will be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/DRIVINGMADELEINE-25thJan
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Online booking closes at 5pm on the night of the film.
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

Rise [France]

RISE [France], Thursday 28 September, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 Autumn 2023

Online booking is appreciated and we cover the cost of your booking fee. Click here to buy your ticket for RISE.

Marion Barbeau, a Paris Opera dancer making her acting debut, is terrific as an injured performer who finds strength in a contemporary dance company.

Elise, a ballet prima donna, believed she had a perfect life with a loving boyfriend and a successful career. However, one catastrophic night, her world falls apart as she discovers her partner’s infidelity before suffering a serious injury on stage. Now, she faces a recovery period that may take two years, with the possibility of never being able to dance professionally again.

In search of physical and emotional healing, Elise escapes to Brittany, leaving Paris behind. Surrounded by friends, a new love interest, and the liberating world of contemporary dance, she rebuilds her relationship with her reserved father and rediscovers her true self.

Ballet-trained Paris Opera principal Marion Barbeau’s body-and-spirit performance is magnetic and heartwarming.

Barbeau, a trained ballet dancer in the Paris Opera, gives a beautiful performance that communicates the emotional interiority that exists in the physicality of dancing. – The Guardian

Breezy, charming love letter to the art form, its tightknit communities, and what nourishes the impulse to find healing expression in movement. – Los Angeles Times

Presented with the support of the French Embassy and the Institut Français.

100% Rotten Tomatoes

  • RISE [EN CORPS]
  • France, 2021 | Language: French | 120 minutes | Cert: 15
  • Director: Cédric Klapisch
  • Cast: Marion Barbeau, Pio Marmaï, François Civil, Denis Podalydès, Muriel Robin
  • Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • A short film may be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Cork Cine Club is absorbing the cost of online booking fees.
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/Rise-28thSep
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

Love According to Dalva [France]

LOVE ACCORDING TO DALVA [France/Belgium], Thursday 12 October, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 Autumn 2023

Online booking is appreciated and we cover the cost of your booking fee. Click here to buy your ticket for Love According to Dalva.

Made with painstaking care and sensitivity, this debut feature from Belgian film-maker Emmanuelle Nicot is about a child victim of grooming and rape who takes the side of her abuser.

After her abusive father is arrested, 12-year-old Dalva is taken into care. Acting more like an adult than a child, her social workers and new roommates find it difficult to connect with Dalva. Gradually with their help, she accepts that her relationship with her father was not normal, allowing her to experience the joys of childhood she was previously denied.

Tackling difficult subject matter with the utmost care and sensitivity, Love According to Dalva is a remarkable film about one young girl’s journey as she emerges from the most horrific situation. Writer / director Emmanuelle Nicot has made an exceptional and assured debut – a compassionate exploration of hope and recovery. Young Zelda Samson excels in an extraordinarily challenging lead role.

This deserved award-winner at Cannes last year manages the tricky feat of mining difficult and potentially lurid material without a single exploitative beat. – The Times [UK]

An intense film about trauma and its devastating consequences. I can’t think of another movie I was so reluctant to watch, but after it started I couldn’t look away. – The Guardian

First-time feature director Emmanuelle Nicot paints an achingly beautiful portrait of friendship, recovery and identity through a young girl’s childhood sexual abuse story. – Little White Lies

It’s an uncomfortable watch, but this assured French-language debut from director Emmanuelle Nicot negotiates its disturbing subject matter with delicacy, sensitivity and honesty. – The Observer

  • LOVE ACCORDING TO DALVA
  • France/Belgium 2022 | Language: French | 87 minutes | Cert: 15A
  • Director: Emmanuelle Nicot
  • Cast: Zelda Samson, Alexis Manenti, Fanta Guirassy
  • Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • A short film may be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Cork Cine Club absorbs the cost of online booking fees.
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/Dalva-12thOct
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

The Night of the 12th [France]

THE NIGHT OF THE 12th [France], Thursday 9 November, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 Autumn 2023

Online booking is appreciated and we cover the cost of your booking fee.  Click here to buy your ticket for The Night of the 12th.

A young woman is murdered in this unnerving, fictionalised version of a real case that haunts the police officers unable to solve it. A gripping true-crime drama.

Set in the foothills of the looming Alps, this deeply atmospheric thriller follows Yohan Vives, an ambitious, disciplined young detective as he takes up a post at the Grenoble police station. His first case as the bureau’s new chief is a tough one. A young woman named Clara Royer has been murdered as she walked home from a party, apparently by someone who knew her. Vives teams up on the case with an older partner, Marceau, whose long career with the Police Judiciaire (the criminal investigation department) has started to take its toll.

Their investigation delves into Clara’s sexual relationships with the men who now constitute the prime suspects in her murder and their often disturbing attitudes toward her. But the film is just as interested in the attitudes of the men responsible for solving such cases, and how those attitudes—toward gender, sex, and violence—inform their work. As a judge observes to Vives at one point in his investigation, “There is something seriously amiss in the relationship between men and women.”

Based on two chapters of a true crime book, “18.3 – A Year with the Judicial Police,” and an actual unsolved case, this immersive police procedural is ultimately a powerful portrait of the society that produces criminals and detectives alike, those who commit the crimes and those responsible for solving them as best they can.

🏆Winner of six César Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Dominik Moll.

🏆 Winner of the Lumière award for Best Film.

French film-maker Dominik Moll has given us a gripping true-crime procedural, a desolate study of the ubiquity of evil and misogynist violence and the abyss of unknowing into which everyone finds themselves gazing… a brutally engrossing drama. – The Guardian

Critic’s Pick. A refreshingly grounded picture of crime-fighting. – The New York Times

This taut and piercing thriller is one of Moll’s stronger works to date, using a genre template to delve into issues of violence, gender and policing in contemporary France. – Hollywood Reporter

93% Rotten Tomatoes

  • THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH [LA NUIT DU 12]
  • France, 2022 | Language: French | 115 minutes | Cert: CLUB
  • Director: Dominik Moll
  • Cast: Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Anouk Grinberg, Mouna Soualem, Pauline Serieys
  • Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • A short film may be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Cork Cine Club is absorbing cost of online booking fees.
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/TheNightofthe12th-9thNov
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

Close [Belgium]

CLOSE [Belgium], Thursday 23 November, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 Autumn 2023

Online booking is appreciated and we cover the cost of your booking fee.  Click here to buy your ticket for Close.

Winner of the Grand Prix award at Cannes 2022 and selected as the Belgian entry for the 2023 Academy Awards, CLOSE is an elegant, poetic and empathetic study of youth from acclaimed writer-director Lukas Dhont.

Thirteen-year-olds Leo and Remi are inseparable; they spend every waking moment together, racing each other on their bikes, playing in the fields that surround their homes, and sleeping at each other’s houses. They are best friends, as close as brothers. However as they start a new school year, the pressures of burgeoning adolescence challenge their bond with unexpected and far-reaching consequences. 

With incredibly authentic and emotional performances from newcomers Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele, Dhont’s latest film is as evocative as it is visually stunning, set against the rich landscape of the Belgian countryside. A powerful coming of age story, this profoundly moving portrait of male friendship offers a depiction of intimacy and masculinity that is sure to have an enduring impact.

★★★★★ makes an indelible emotional impactIrish Times

An authentic study of loss, buttressed by two extraordinary child actors, and complemented by a handful of impeccable adult players, most notably Émilie Dequenne. – Times [UK]

Dambrine’s performance is by some distance one of the most extraordinary by a child his age I’ve ever seen: tempered, tightly wound, as truthful as a flower. – Financial Times

★★★★ achingly poignant tale of the end of a childhood friendship – The Guardian

Winner – Grand Prix, Cannes Film Festival 2022

Winner – Best Film, Sydney Film Festival 2022

Nominee – Best International Feature Film, Academy Awards 2023

91% Rotten Tomatoes

  • CLOSE
  • Belgium, 2022 | Language: French | 104 minutes | Cert: 15A
  • Director: Lukas Dhont
  • Cast: Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Emilie Dequenne, Léa Drucker
  • Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • A short film may be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Cork Cine Club is absorbing cost of online booking fees.
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/Close-23rdNov
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

The Innocent [France]

THE INNOCENT [France], Thursday 7 December, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 Autumn 2023

Online booking is appreciated and we cover the cost of your booking fee.  Click here to buy your ticket for The Innocent.

Familial tensions, criminal hijinks and unexpected romance collide in the uproariously entertaining new comedy from the multi-talented Louis Garrel (A Faithful Man), about the misguided attempts of a dedicated son who, in trying to protect his mother, finds himself embroiled in an elaborate heist.

Lyon, present day. When widowed marine biologist Abel (played by director Garrel) learns that his impulsive mum Sylvie is once again re-marrying – this time to an inmate she met whilst teaching theatre in prison – he’s much more than uncomfortable. Doubting that convicted burglar Michel is capable of turning over a new leaf, Abel’s protective streak kicks in, and so with the help of his best friend Clémence, he begins tailing his new stepfather’s movements. Their amateur sleuthing is quickly uncovered by Michel and triggers an unlikely – and bold – business proposition for them both.

Joyfully paying homage to the great crime capers of the French New Wave, and partly inspired by events from his own life, Garrel’s witty and beautifully constructed film is a delirious mix of comedy, romance, suspense and action, with several twists too good to spoil. Selected as the special Gala Screening to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival – where it drew a thunderously positive response – this hilarious, quintessentially French comedy aims to please and does so effortlessly.

Few caper comedies have this much heart, and few romantic dramas offer such an appealingly nutty plot. – Wall Street Journal

A humanistic story wrapped in a fun, punchy exterior, much like the French synth-pop music throughout its soundtrack. – New York Times

The Innocent is the first movie of Cannes 2022 to give me that belly aching, knee slapping laughter that I desperately needed. – Deadline Hollywood

It’s a broad, enjoyable, light-hearted movie with a fair few not-insignificant plot holes, but a genuinely surprising storyline that keeps you guessing to the end. – The Guardian

100% Rotten Tomatoes

  • THE INNOCENT
  • France, 2022 | Language: French | 99 minutes | Cert: 15a
  • Director: Louis Garrel
  • Cast: Roschdy Zem, Anouk Grinberg, Noémie Merlant, Louis Garrel
  • Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • A short film may be shown before the feature.
  • BOOKING
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Cork Cine Club is absorbing cost of online booking fees.
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/TheInnocent-7thDec
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change is appreciated.

The Rose Maker

THE ROSE MAKER [France], Thursday 16 March, 8pm

By archive, Season 24 films

ONLINE BOOKING NOW AVAILABLE.

TICKETS ON SALE SUNDAY 5 FEBRUARY AT 10AM.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK.

Presented with the support of the French Embassy and the Institut Français.

A charming and witty comedy-drama, The Rose Maker is a crowd-pleasing tale of the fight for independence in the cut-throat world of artisan floristry.

Eve is one of France’s greatest rose growers, but her business is on the verge of collapse. When her secretary hires three inexperienced ex-convicts, they must team up to rescue the business in this verdant comedy. Despite her initial hostility to the idea, the new arrivals soon inspire Eve to give rose-designing one last shot.

A fierce lead performance from Catherine Frot proves a particular highlight here, with the Marguerite star once again proving herself to be one of France’s most compelling screen performers.

It’s a relaxed film, one that allows the audience to sit back and, if not smell the roses, then at least appreciate them. – New York Times

A film that wears its emotions lightly but generously, like dew on a blush-colored petal. – Washington Post

Christine Braithwaite’s short Irish film, Circuit Love [15 mins], will be shown before the feature.

95% Rotten Tomatoes

  • The Rose Maker [La Fine Fleur]
  • France, 2020 | Language: French| 95 minutes | Cert: Club
  • Director: Pierre Pinaud
  • Cast: Catherine Frot, Melan Omerta, Fatsah Bouyahmed, Olivia Côte
  • Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert: CLUB for over 18s.
  • Tickets: €8.50/€7 concession
  • Cork Cine Club is absorbing cost of booking fees.
  • Book online: https://bit.ly/TheRoseMaker
  • Pay at the door by card or cash. Exact change appreciated.

cancelled: LES MISÉRABLES [FRANCE], WED 11 NOVEMBER, 6:30PM

By archive, Season 23 films

Inspired by the 2005 riots in Paris, Les Misérables – directed by Ladj Ly – follows Stéphane, a recent transplant to the impoverished suburb of Montfermeil, as he joins the local anti-crime squad. Working alongside his unscrupulous colleagues Chris and Gwada, Stéphane struggles to maintain order amidst the mounting tensions between local gangs. When an arrest turns unexpectedly violent, the three officers must reckon with the aftermath and keep the neighborhood from spiraling out of control.

Academy Award Nominee, Best International Feature Film, 2020

A wild and electrifying modern French drama…better than La Haine, more incendiary than Do the Right Thing. – Irish Times ★★★★★

The ghosts of Victor Hugo’s downtrodden 19th-century rebels haunt Ladj Ly’s César-winning contemporary urban drama, a streetwise tale of France’s dispossessed masses, brought once again to the brink of rebellion.The Guardian ★★★★

A cross between The Wire, Do the Right Thing and Training Day, Les Misérables is brilliantly paced, unbearably tense and a reminder that there are so many great actors who go under the radar.RTE ★★★★★

New York Times interview with director Ladj Ly:  A Movie Torn From the Pages of His Life.

88% Rotten Tomatoes

France, 2019 | Language: French, Bambara | 104 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Director: Ladj Ly

Cast: Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti, Djebril Zonga, Issa Perica, Al-Hassan Ly

Foreign language films are subtitled.  Cert CLUB for over 18s.

LE BRIO [FRANCE], THU 23 JANUARY, 8PM

By archive, Season 22 films

In Paris, a law student of Algerian descent clashes with a controversial professor who uses language tainted with racist slurs.  He is given one chance to redeem himself.  They both must overcome their prejudices.

Camelia Jordana and Daniel Auteuil prove to be a winning pair.Hollywood Reporter

Click here for Rotten Tomatoes.

France, 2017 | Language: French | 95 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Cast: Camélia Jordana, Daniel Auteuil, Yasin Houicha, Nozha Khouadra

Presented with the support of the French Embassy and the Institut Français.

A FAITHFUL MAN (FRANCE – L’HOMME FIDÈLE), THU 13 FEBRUARY, 8PM

By archive, Season 22 films

Marianne, Abel’s girlfriend of three years, tells him that she is pregnant. Unfortunately for Abel, the father is his best friend, whom Marianne is now going to marry. A delightfully playful and truly French romantic comedy.

Shifting points of view as nimbly as its players switch partners, the sophomore feature from actor/director Louis Garrel—co-written with the legendary Jean-Claude Carrière—is at once a beguiling bedroom farce and a playful inversion of the patriarchal tropes of the French New Wave.

Slyly shifts from fake murder mystery to romantic comedy to family melodrama…stylish shenanigans and a highly entertaining love triangle.Irish Times ★★★

France, 2018 | Language: French | 75 minutes | Cert: CLUB

Director: Louis Garrel

Cast: Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp