For 25 years Richmond has been home to the country’s largest French Film Festival. Over that time, theaters in the city have screened more than 700 films.
In addition, Virginia’s capital has also played host to some of France’s most famous directors, writers and actors. Mallory Noe-Payne has more on this weekend’s special events.
At Virginia’s Museum of Fine Arts, members of the international delegation for the French Film Festival share a meal together, ahead of this weekend’s busy list of events.
Elsa Boublil is a journalist, with France’s national music radio, and it’s her second year coming to Richmond for the festival.
“Every time I discover something about cinema, the cinema, and well I discover it in Richmond, Virginia. That’s amazing, isn’t it?” she asks.
Here in Virginia, she also meets elites of the French film industry.
Peter Kirkpatrick, a professor at VCU, is the one who has brought them all here. He and his wife Francoise Kirkpatrick, a professor at the University of Richmond, founded the French Film Festival 25 years ago.
They say, when they started, they couldn’t imagine it becoming the event it is today.
“We’re both professors… Francoise was a specialist of Proust and my (background) was in french political discourse, and the impact of the festival is quite interesting on our students but also even on the curriculum of our universities,” says Peter Kirkpatrick.
Since they started the festival, Francoise and Peter have both become professors of film studies in addition to French, and the programs at each of their universities have expanded.
“Also some of our activities, subtitling. We never did that before, we learned how to do it. (Peter) is teaching a class at VCU about the art and poetics of subtitling,” says Francoise Kirkpatrick.
In addition to opportunities for their students, the event has also shown new worlds to countless Virginians. Over the past 25 years they’ve screened more than 700 films, and brought more than 850 directors, screenwriters and more to the Commonwealth.
But for this, the 25th year, the Kirkpatricks say they’ve pulled off a once-in-a-lifetime event -- the display of the magic lanterns. They’ve successfully imported hundreds of antique hand-painted slides, from as far back as the 17th century. Moving images as our great-grandparents saw them, before the birth of cinema.
“And the way they are putting those slides in the triple cannon lantern, it’s like a ballet” describes Francoise Kirkpatrick, “You have to be so quick, it’s like a choreography.”
The slides will be shown along with accompaniment from a French harpist. That event is Saturday evening at the Byrd Theater.
You can find a full list of events here.