Paris in July - The 3 French Films I loved

In 1989 Alliance Francaise started the French Film Festival in Sydney. Not sure when it started in Perth, but I only became aware of it in the last 5 or 6 years...
The French Film Festival movies are presented over 3 weeks in March/April every year and films are always shown at the Palace chain of cinemas known for their small rooms and international film shows.
In March this year I managed to catch one of the French movies showing at the Luna Leederville, and apparently it was been considered this year's most popular movie.
It happens to also be my favourite of the ones I've seen this year too!

Demain tout commence - with the English title "Two is a family", with the actor Omar Sy playing a reluctant father to a little girl he didn't know he had until his English ex-girlfriend shows up and leaves him with the baby.
He was living a carefree life in the French Riviera and it all changes at that point. He then embarks on a trip to London to find the baby's mother and with the help of a French speaking man he meets at the train station takes on a job as a film stuntman.
After spending a lot of time with the little girl, he learns how to be a father and everything changes for him...
The little girl played by Gloria Colston, born in 2007 to a French mother and American father, DJ Lord Jazz, who is also a hip-hop artist known as DJ Glo, plays a fantastic role in her first movie. 
Omar Sy who I first saw in the film "The Intouchables" and who impressed me then, plays the role to perfection in this movie.

You can watch the trailer here, with English subtitles.

                                    

The Intouchables that I also saw during one of the French Festivals a few years ago, went on to win first time actor Omar Sy the "Cesar" - for best actor in 2012, the first time a black actor won that award in France.  He was previously known as a comedian.

The film's global success have also made him an international star with roles in X-Men, Days of Future Past and Jurassic World.

In this movie, based on a true story of a friendship between Philippe, a Parisian millionaire who is quadriplegic since a paragliding accident and Driss, the young street smart ex-con he hires to be his live in carer.

Although from two very different backgrounds the two men bond and form a close relationship through humour and honesty.  A very uplifting film!

                                                  

                                                  

You can watch the trailer here, with English subtitles.

Not as significant or touching as the two films above I've seen another movie with Omar Sy called Samba, a comedy-drama from 2014.
Here he plays an immigrant from Senegal, Samba Cissé who works as a dish-washer in a Paris hotel and has managed to stay under the radar for a decade. After a bureaucratic slip-up he is detained and ordered to leave France. But he finds an ally in Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) an emotionally fragile woman who volunteers at an immigration advocacy center, who fights for him to stay in France.

You can watch the trailer here, with English subtitles.

 

Thanks for joining me for Paris in July. Visit Tamara for links to more Paris and French-themed posts!   Linking with Paris in July.



(film posters and film clips from the net)