Parlons Cinéma, Encore!
We are happy to announce the return, both online and in-person, of AFSR’s cinema club, starting in October at the Mill Valley Film Festival!
During the pandemic, instructor Joelle Pluchon, hosted a wonderful series of bilingual online discussions on French language films. In case you weren’t there, here are some of the films we discussed in 2021 and 2022:
- Dalida (Lisa Azuelos, 2017)
- Odette Toulemonde (Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, 2006)
- Les 400 Coups (François Truffaut, 1959)
- La Vache et le Prisonnier (Henri Verneuil, 1959)
- Django (Étienne Comar, 2017)
- Au Bout de Souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
- Pauline à la Plage (Éric Rohmer, 1983)
- Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (Agnes Varda, 2000)
- Le Passion d’Augustine (Léa Pool, 2015)
- Alceste à Bicyclette (Philippe Le Guay, 2013)
- L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934)
The good news is that Joelle and I will be bringing these get-togethers back to the Alliance on a regular basis beginning in October. I hope that you, like we, love the art and entertainment in France’s (and the wider Francophone world’s) rich history of brilliant, funny, serious, romantic, and melodious films. French directors like Georges Méliès, Louis Feuillade, and Alice Guy-Blaché were pioneers of filmmaking, before Hollywood existed, and France has always supported their film industry and world cinema as well.
Joelle and I plan to propose a streamable film for you to watch each month, and we’ll convene on Zoom, and occasionally in person, to share our feelings on the language, acting, direction and emotions of the film, and its place and commentary on French culture. Besides films from France, we will try to highlight the cinema of the wider French-speaking world, showing important works from Quebec, Africa, Belgium and Switzerland, for example.
French Film Screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival

The news of the moment is that we are planning to arrange a trip to watch an in-person film at the 45th Mill Valley Film Festival in San Rafael, during the week of October 8-16, 2022. The Festival is one of the best on the West Coast, and usually screens half a dozen films in French. After the matinee or early evening screening, we can gather at a cafe or restaurant in San Rafael to share our impressions. We hope you’ll be able to come!
Watch this space, or sign up for the AFSR email newsletter, to be informed about this event, once the festival has announced their film schedule, and we have picked a date and time.
Stay In Touch
In the meantime, if you have any special interests in the films you’d like to see and discuss, feel free to email me or Joelle, at cineclub@afsantarosa.org
Also, make sure to visit our Resources page to find a new listing of services that specialize in distributing French film and TV series. I also plan on recommending good French films coming to local theaters in the Bay Area when send out our monthly invitations.