Started in 2010, the annual Palouse French Film Festival is back for its 16th iteration, with a notable roster of recent French films for audiences to enjoy, this year’s titles including Dossier 137 (Case 137) showing Tuesday, October 6, L’Étranger (The Stranger) showing Tuesday, October 13, À son image (In His Own Image) showing Tuesday, October 20 and La venue de l’avenir (Colours of Time) ending off the festival with its showing on Tuesday, October 27.
The first film of this season, Dossier 137 (Case 137), follows the story of an internal affairs investigator, Stéphanie Bertrand, played by Léa Drucker, whose job is policing the police. Following a civilian riot in the streets of France, Bertrand takes up a case in which a projectile fired by an officer in the riot struck a protester in the head, causing significant brain damage and a lifetime of struggle for the victim and his family. As Bertrand investigates, she deals with pressure from the police to lay off on her investigation, including from her divorced husband, confronts the realities of the public’s negative perception of law enforcement, including within her own family, and discovers she has a personal connection to the victim, pressuring herself to work harder to solve the case despite her personal bias being against investigation policy. The film was extremely relevant as the opening film of this year’s festival considering the current major riots taking place within France.
Sara Nelson, co-organizer of the festival, discussed how the festival is a continued collaboration between the University of Idaho and Washington State University, as well as with the Kenworthy, to bring French culture and language to the Palouse. “Our first priority was to provide a vehicle for cultural education to the students of our two universities, and for that reason, we made sure to offer free admission to students,” she stated while talking about the history of the event.
“It was also very important to us to be a resource for the broader communities of Moscow, Pullman, and the Palouse, and so we committed to keeping general admission prices low and to offering a very affordable festival pass.”
As a result, the festival has grown to be attended each year by a blend of roughly 40% students and 60% community members.
Sara Nelson explains how herself and the event’s other organizer, Sabine Davis of WSU, go about choosing a variety of films from such a large pool of potential selections. “We watch the French and American press for films that gain critical acclaim, we pay attention to the films that appear at various significant film festivals… We look for films that have something interesting to show about the societies they represent, something that audiences can learn as they watch.”
Layla Grace, French tutor and student at UI, provided her input on the value of the event to students.
“It’s important to have events centered around other cultures and people so that we widen our perspectives- not just French films but any foreign films! We are so used to focusing on what’s popular on Netflix or showing at the movies that I think sometimes we can lose track of the importance of learning and consuming media outside of our “bubbles”. À son image (In His Own Image), is the showing Grace is most interested in because of the various topics she anticipates the film will discuss and its setting in Corsica.
“People can expect to learn something from each film they attend, and to come away with interesting questions to think over. We help to amplify this effect by including some brief remarks before each film—remarks delivered by faculty members from the two universities in fields that connect with the content of the films,” Nelson adds.
Films will be showing through Tuesday, October 27, each Tuesday at 7pm at the Kenworthy in downtown Moscow.
Nelson concluded that “People can also expect a great communal experience when they attend the festival. Watching and reacting to the films while in the company of a diverse mix of other spectators is an enriching experience all in itself. And finally, audience members who attend the first and last films in each year’s festival will be treated to receptions with delicious food and drink and the chance to rub elbows with other French film fans!”
Cooper Molinengo can be reached at [email protected].