After a successful inaugural debut in Paris last year, the Edge Atlantic Film Festival (EAFF), created by New York University in France, will make its New York debut from June 27 through 29.
Under the High Patronage of Alain Juppé, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and François Delattre, French Ambassador in the United States, June 27-29, 2011
After a successful inaugural debut in Paris last year, the Edge Atlantic Film Festival (EAFF), created by New York University in France, will make its New York debut from June 27 through 29. The Festival, a yearly event alternating between Paris and New York, presents unreleased independent feature films—French films in New York and American films in Paris. EAFF’s first New York screenings will premiere four independent films that spotlight the next generation of French filmmakers and their unique view on France.
The Festival screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the directors. Also, EAFF will showcase eight student shorts from Paris-based film school La Fémis and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The screenings are all free and open to the public. In addition, a series of master classes with award-winning American and French filmmakers will be available for students.
The EAFF New York series is intended to highlight the evolving nature and perception of a young and emerging French society through the eyes of a select group of rising filmmakers. Their works explore the meaning of French identity, reflect the transformation of the French language, and ultimately define the cultural renaissance of an increasingly diverse nation.
Festival organizers hope that by premiering the features in New York it will provide international exposure to deserving filmmakers and authors. Among them are the authors Boris Dolivet, Alexis Dolivet, and Ismaël Sy Savane, as well as the filmmakers Emmanuel Klotz and Albert Pereira-Lazaro, whose wild and idiosyncratic film Lascars features breakthrough animation and the voices of Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. Also screening is Mariana Otero’s visionary documentary Entre nos mains, nominated for a César (France’s national film award) this year, and Jean-Charles Hue’s ultra-realistic La BM du Seigneur about the Yéniche travelling community in northern France. Finally, Haitian born Djinn Carrénard’s much buzzed about, genre-bending, underground film Donoma will close out the eclectic festival.
Also screened will be a selection of eight outstanding student films representing NYU’s Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts and La Fémis, the French national school of cinema. Among the student films will be James Franco’s Herbert White, a 2010 Sundance Festival selection.
Complementing the screenings, EAFF will offer three master classes in filmmaking, conducted by Jay Anania, assistant arts professor in the Kanbar Institute, and guest feature directors, including Gregory Viens. The classes will be open to French and American students only and will investigate the various stages involved in crafting a short film. Working in small groups, students will write, direct, shoot, and edit a short HD project that will be screened on the last day of the festival.
The Edge Atlantic Film Festival is supported by OpenSkies, New York University, New York University in France, Samsung, Tisch School of the Arts, La Fémis, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Unifrance, Cifonelli, the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD), and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York.
The screenings will take place at NYU’s Cantor Film Center and the Brooklyn Bridge Park (Dumbo), Brooklyn. For more detailed information, and the latest news about the Festival, visit: http://festival-edgeatlantic.com or http://eaff.tumblr.com.
Individuals interested in attending the Festival’s events should make a reservation. To RSVP, visit: http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showcode=EDGE.