The cinema is considered by many, especially the French, who practically invented it, to be the key art form of the 20th century. Now a century old, its 100th birthday will be celebrated by a special presentation of films beginning at the Seven Arts in Norwood on Wednesday November 8.
The season, organised by The South African Cinema Foundation in collaboration with the French Institute, the National Film, Video and Sound Archives and the Goethe Institute, will include a retrospective of films from the great French studio Pathe, a series of documentaries on movie history around the world and an in-depth historical overview of South African cinema.
The Pathe retrospective, which begins the season, will run from November 8 to 16 and will include:
* Marcel Carne’s classic production Les Enfants du Paradis (The Children of Paradise, 1945), shot in Paris in the closing stages of the German occupation and starring Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty. It is set in the Boulevard du Crime, home of Parisian popular theatre in the early 19th century.
* Another Carne classic is Les Portes de la Nuit (The Gates of the Night, 1946) starring Yves Montand and set among the collaborators and profiteers immediately after the war.
* Rene Clair’s 1947 Le Silence est d’Or (Golden Silence) starring the singing heart-throb Maurice Chevalier, and set in 1910 in the world of silent film studios.
* Andre Hunebelle’s lush 1953 The Three Musketeers, starring Georges Marchal and Bourvil.
* Julian Duvivier’s Voici le Temps des Assassins (The Day of the Assassins), a 1956 thriller starring Jean Gabin.
The 10 feature films will be supported by short films from the period as well as the famous Pathe newsreels from the years in question.
The festival will close on November 28 with a special screening of one of the first vampire films ever made, Louis Feuillade’s 1915 Les Vampires. The presentation will be screened at a venue still to be finalised. It will be accompanied by a French musical group who specialise in the playing of music for silent films.
The South African section, at present being finalised, will include historical films from the early part of the century as well as classics such as Jans Rautenbach’s Jannie Totsiens, Jamie Uys’ Dingaka and Ross Devenish’s The Guest.
A series of films in which the history of films from various countries are examined by masters from those countries, will also be screened during this season.
The full programme and synopses will appear in The Weekly Mail & Guardian on Friday 3rd November.