Bonjour Film Festival at NFC

By Anuradha Kodagoda

Art, love and wine are the fundamentals of French culture. It is where cinema was born. There are more than 70 countries with their native French speaking franco

phones. In this context the much-awaited international foreign film festival of the year, the Bonjour Film Festival, also known as the Francophone Film Festival in Sri Lanka will raise the curtain for local filmgoers from March 26 to 29 at the National Film Corporation (NFC).

This year the Festival consists of seven films representing five Francophone countries. All films carry subtitles in English. Entrance is free. For the past few years, the Bonjour Film Festival focused on Sri Lankan short film makers and their productions.

Before each feature film screening, a short film made by a Sri Lankan film_maker was screened, opening a rare platform for Sri Lankan short film_makers to screen their productions for local audiences. By following this progressive practice further, together with Agenda 14,the same practise will continue while six short films are being screened.

Eye-opener

“The films are an eye-opener to learn more about the countries where they are made in”, said Heinz Walker-Nederkoorn, Ambassador of Switzerland.

The opening film of the Festival will be the Swiss production ‘Sam’ directed by Elena Hazanov in 2014. The film will be screened, in the presence of scriptwritter, Georges Guerreiro.

There will be one French film from Canada titled ‘Gabrielle’ directed by Louise Archambault (2013).

There will definitely be two from France titled ‘Gare du Nord’ and ‘Belle and Sebastian’ and also one France Senegal film titled The Pirogue which is the closing film of the Festival. ‘Don't Burn’ a film from Vietnam and ‘Paper Souls’ from Belgique are also in the lineup. As we witnessed over the past few years, the Francophone Film Festival in Sri Lanka, has become an increasingly popular event among local movie lovers where the Festival attracts a large audience every year.

Bonjour Cinema is organised by the High Commission of Canada, the Embassy of France, Embassy of Switzerland, the Alliance Francaise de Kotte, the Vietnam embassy, the Embassy of Belgium in India, in association with the NFC and Agenda 14 to present a collection of diversified movies produced in member countries of the International Organisation of a La Francophonie (OIF).