The American French Film Festival has announced the programme for its 30th anniversary edition, which will screen 31 features, 11 series, four documentaries and 14 short films at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles in November. The event, known as TAFFF, has shifted from its former spring dates to the autumn, and organisers revealed the full line-up on Tuesday.
Several submissions for the best international feature Oscar are on the bill, among them Japan’s All of a Sudden, Belgium’s Coward, Romania’s Fjord, starring Sebastian Stan, and Morocco’s Strawberries. The festival opens with In Waves, a Netflix animated feature from director Phuong Mai Nguyen that adapts AJ Dungo’s autobiographical graphic novel. Other titles include Marie Kreutzer’s Gentle Monster, led by Léa Seydoux, Louis Clichy’s animated Iron Boy and Pierre Salvadori’s The Electric Kiss, which opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Several of the Oscar entries will be presented as special screenings.
US premieres include De Gaulle, Part II: Liberty, All About Corinne and Karma, while the television strand features R91, A Prophet and Alice: Pioneer of Cinema. Special screenings are planned for A Girl Unknown, All of a Sudden, De Gaulle, Part I: Resistance, Fjord, Gentle Monster, Iron Boy, La Gradiva and Minotaur. The documentary section comprises Inside Gaza, Rebounds: A History of Electro Dance, We Are the Orchestra and Whispers in the Woods, and the shorts programme includes Danse Macabre, Faux Bijoux, God Is Shy, Hoover Disco, Lippenstift and Water Girl.
The festival was founded by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, which has brought more than 1,200 French films and series to Hollywood since 1997. Director Taylor Hackford, a former president of the Directors Guild and a board member of the fund, said the milestone makes TAFFF “the second oldest film festival in the city of Angels”. The anniversary edition will again be hosted at the guild’s headquarters.
François Truffart, the festival’s executive producer, has programmed the event since 2004 and pointed to its role in giving series a competitive platform alongside features. He said TAFFF had been “the first to launch a series competition alongside feature films”, a strand that this year brings several French television dramas to Los Angeles audiences for the first time. Reviews of All of a Sudden, Minotaur and Coward have already been published as awards season builds.
