Internationally acclaimed French films arriving at Forum Cinemas

On Bastille Day (Thursday, 14 July) Wagga audiences can embrace their inner Francophile with wine, canapés and of course, popcorn.

Screening eight of the best new French films from 14 to 20 July, the Alliance Française Film Festival is brought to Wagga by long-standing organisation Alliance Française de Wagga Wagga.

Forum Cinemas general manager Craig Lucas has been with the cinemas for 22 years and is looking forward to the 14th instalment of an event that has become a cultural institution in Wagga.

“It’s above expectations when you compare it to similar city festivals because those organisers just don’t think that there are that many people who speak French or are involved with the culture out in the country,” he said.

He praised the Wagga Alliance, describing them as “really well established and well attended” and indicated that the film festival wouldn’t work anywhere near as well if it weren’t for them.

The worldwide organisation was conceived in 1883 by founders who wanted to promote the French language and culture worldwide – including famous microbiologist Louis Pasteur and author Jules Verne.

In 1889, the first ever international Alliances Française were established, one of which was the first Australian branch in Melbourne.

Today, the organisation teaches around 550,000 students all over the world. There are more than 800 Alliances established in 133 countries including 30 in Australia.

Alliance Française de Wagga Wagga has been flying the French flag in the Riverina for 50 years.

“It’s really all berets off to the Alliance,” Mr Lucas said. “They’ve done a lot of the hard yards.”

After the success of the 2021 festival, Alliance Française de Sydney director Philippe Ostermann spoke to the Fondation des Alliances Françaises about the “magnificent achievement of which we are immensely proud”.

Last year’s festival amassed over 177,000 viewers across Australia, despite having to dodge cinema closures due to the pandemic.

Australia is home to some of the most committed Francophiles in the world. France received well over a million Australian tourists every year before the pandemic.

Mr Lucas emphasised that the French process of creating a film is very different to the Hollywood – or even Australian – equivalent, and for good reason.

“Leading up to the Second World War, Europe used to have a lot of big studios as Hollywood did. But after the war, they’d lost many of their studios because Europe had been completely bombed out,” Mr Lucas said.

“So Hollywood could keep going with that, whereas Europeans had to basically just pick up a camera and film something in the streets, in somebody’s house, with little to no budget or facilities to produce their films.”

The difference between Hollywood and French (“it could be argued European in general,” said Mr Lucas) production emerged in this post-war period.

“The French have well fleshed out characters, very deep storylines and very high quality acting now because that’s all they had to work with when they rebuilt their industry,” Mr Lucas concluded.

He echoes the sentiments of Mr Ostermann, who said that the main drawcard for Australian audiences is the high quality and diversity of French cinema, which removes the emotional barricade often set up by American-produced blockbuster films.

“Our films seduce an audience who wants to rediscover the ‘je ne sais quoi’ specific to French cinema; subtle scripts, a taste for dialogue and complex characters,” Mr Ostermann said.

He described the Festival as “une magnifique aventure collective” – a magnificent collective adventure that is sure to transport Wagga audiences to a far-flung country that in recent years, has been slightly further out of reach.

“Come down, pick up a leaflet and pick one of the movies – you are guaranteed to find something you’ll like,” Mr Lucas said.

“We’ve got drama, romance, history, comedy, mysteries and crime dramas.

“It’s a totally different experience than watching a Hollywood movie and you’ll walk out feeling like a changed person.”

See the complete list of films playing at the festival here. Find out more about the Alliance Française de Wagga Wagga here.