Editor

Charlotte Gainsbourg will be the focus of FIAF's CinémaTuesdays in the New Year with nine great films, including a sneak preview of her latest work, Persécution (a New York premiere).

 "Charlotte For Ever and forever in my heart"-Serge Gainsbourg

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, will be starting off the New Year with CinémaTuesdays film programming in January and February dedicated to the fashionable French film icon and personality, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Over the course of nine films, including the New York premiere of Persécution (2009), and a screening of the rare Charlotte For Ever (1986), FIAF's Charlotte Forever series will showcase the actress's enigmatic allure and charm.

The daughter of France's mythical couple, pop sensation and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, and British actress and singer Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg has shown both daring and creativity in her rise to the vanguard of France's cultural scene. A natural virtuoso by the age of twelve, her breakout role in Claude Miller's L'Effrontée earned her a first César award for "Most Promising Actress" in 1985. Since then, Gainsbourg has starred in over thirty critically-acclaimed films and has worked with prominent directors such as Agnès Varda, Franco Zeffirelli, Eric Rochant, Michel Gondry, and Todd Haynes, to name a few. Her film work has earned her countless César nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for La Bûche (1999), one of the films to be shown during the FIAF series.

For Gainsbourg, risk-taking was perhaps a natural path given her upbringing in a uniquely artistic household; the actress calls it, "the Gainsbourg family mantra." The fearless Gainsbourg's most provocative work yet as the grieving mother character in Lars von Trier's Antichrist (2009) won her the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival this past May. Delving deep into her childhood, a FIAF series highlight will include the scandalous Charlotte For Ever (1986), the film directed by Serge Gainsbourg starring father and daughter that shocked audiences with its implications of incest. The Charlotte Gainsbourg album of the same name, also released that year, features the father-daughter duet and cult classic, "Lemon Incest."

The FIAF film tribute will also feature Gainsbourg's latest role opposite Romain Duris in the upcoming Persécution (2009), directed by Patrice Chéreau. The screening at FIAF will be a New York premiere.

A woman of many talents, Gainsbourg recorded the album 5:55 with the groovy electro-pop duo Air and Jarvis Cocker in 2006, and has contributed to film soundtracks such as the Bob Dylan biopic I‘m Not There (2007), in which she also starred opposite Heath Ledger. Her third album is slated for release in early 2010 and was produced by Beck. The video for the newly released single, "Heaven Can Wait," is already garnering rave reviews.

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The Science of Sleep (La Science des Rêves)

January 12 at 12:30, 4 & 7:30pm

Directed by Michel Gondry. 2006. Color. 105 min.

With Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat

Gorgeously inventive and achingly human, Gondry's third feature finds him exploring memory, imagination, and love in his inimitable style. Stephane (García Bernal) spends his days in an office and his evenings tinkering with homemade gadgets-and at all times, he pines for his neighbor, Stephanie (Gainsbourg). A film full of extraordinary reveries.

"Sweet, crazy, and tinged with sadness...a wondrous concoction."-J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

My Wife is an Actress (Ma femme est une actrice)

January 19 at 12:30, 4 & 7:30pm

Directed by Yvan Attal. 2001. Color. 95 min.

With Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yvan Attal, Terence Stamp, Noémie Lvovsky

Gainsbourg and Attal, married in real life, are immensely charming as an onscreen couple in this shrewd comedy aimed at celebrity and romance. A journalist adores his actress wife, but is sent into a neurotic panic when she is cast as the love interest of a debonair international star.

"What gives My Wife Is An Actress its extra juice is the natural energy exchange between the spirited real-life couple, who conjure the sort of credibly warm interplay that is hard to fake and probably harder to reproduce in front of a camera."-L.A. Times

*Special Sneak Preview Screening*

Persécution

Monday, January 25 at 7pm

Patrice Chéreau, 2009. Color. 100 min.

With Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jean Hughes Anglade

Note: This film is a New York premiere

Daniel (Duris), an independent, solitary man, and Sonia (Gainsbourg), share an uneasy, emotional relationship. Daniel lives a relatively happy life renovating apartments, until a stranger begins to stalk him. Increasingly persecuted by the strange man, Daniel in turn begins to persecute Sonia, his friends, and family. The man's persistence takes its toll on Daniel and Sonia's relationship, leaving Daniel confused and more alone than ever.

Happily Ever After (Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants)

January 26 at 12:30, 4 & 7:30pm

Directed by Yvan Attal, 2004. Color. 100 min.

With Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yvan Attal, Terence Stamp, Johnny Depp

Gainsbourg's second collaboration with Attal after the success of My Wife is An Actress finds three friends approaching middle age considering their past, present, and possibly future experiences with love. With great comic insight and graceful filmmaking, Attal examines fidelity, marriage, and the paths to happiness we sometimes struggle to find.

"Carried off with grace, wit and refinement."­-The New York Times

La Bûche

February 2 at 12:30, 4 & 7:30pm

Directed by Daniele Thompson, 1999. Color. 106 min.

With Sabine Azéma, Emmanuelle Béart, Charlotte Gainsbourg

At Christmastime, three daughters reunite to assist their grieving mother after the funeral of their stepfather. Now adults who lead very different lives, these women gather to confront a shared past and redefine their family. Gainsbourg won a Best Supporting Actress César for her performance as Milla, the youngest daughter.

"Even if you hate everything about the holidays-and especially if you hate the kind of movies that herald them-you will find much to love in La Bûche."-A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Lover (Amoureuse)

February 9 at 12:30, 4 & 7:30pm

Directed by Jacques Doillon, 1992. Color. 99 min.

With Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yvan Attal, Thomas Langmann  

Doillon, whose keen understanding of youth is without peer, offers with Lover the story of a girl who becomes the object of infatuation of an older man. Already dating another boy, Marie (Gainsbourg) struggles with the persistence of Paul (Attal), whose interference in her life is a distraction-and, possibly, a temptation.

L'Effrontée

February 16 at 4pm

Directed by Claude Miller, 1985. Color. 96 min.

With Charlotte Gainsbourg, Clothilde Baudon, Bernadette Laffont, Jean-Claude Brialy

Note: No English subtitles

Winner of the Prix Louis-Delluc, L'Effrontée earned Gainsbourg the "Most Promising Actress" César for this, her first starring role. As a teenager in rural France, Charlotte (Gainsbourg) is frustrated and bored with home life. But a young pianist upends her world with talk of opportunity elsewhere, far from her family.

Charlotte for Ever

February 16 at 12:30 & 7:30pm

Directed by Serge Gainsbourg, 1986. Color. 94 min.

With Charlotte Gainsbourg, Serge Gainsbourg, Roland Bertin, Roland Dubillard

Note: This film contains R-rated material

A rare, not-to-be-missed screening of this notorious and misunderstood film. Serge Gainsbourg wrote, directed, and starred in this dark and fascinating tale of a screenwriter grieving over his wife's unexpected death. Suicidal, he turns for affection to the only remaining link to his wife-his daughter.

Kung-fu master!

February 23 at 12:30, 4 & 7:30pm

Agnès Varda, 1988. Color. 80 min.

With Jane Birkin, Mathieu Demy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lou Doillon

Mary-Jane (Birkin), a divorced mother of two, grows close to a teenage boy she met at her daughter's party. Through conversations, vacations, and video games, the pair's relationship evolves in a way that confuses their families and even themselves. Varda's empathetic direction anchors this delicate, but often powerful story.

"It is doubtless the most beautiful role played by Jane on the big screen."-J. Nacache, La Revue du Cinéma

About FIAF

FIAF, a not-for-profit organization created in 1898 by American Francophiles, is one of the largest and most respected centers of French-American activities in the United States, widely known as the home of New York's foremost French language school, the leading all-French library in the country, and New York's only performing arts center dedicated to French and Francophone culture. FIAF is dedicated to encouraging interaction and better understanding between French-speaking and American communities by creating programs in the arts and education that promote and enhance knowledge of French and Francophone culture.