Rien de personnel
(Nothing against you)
French with subtitles)
by Mathias Gokalp-
90min - 35 mm

In order to launch its top secret new product, the Muller pharmaceutical company throws an extravagant party where directors, managers and employees are all invited.  During the course of the evening, the guests are asked to participate in a role-playing game which, it turns out, is actually a massive training simulation for the management team.

La Petite Jerusalem
(Small Jerusalem)
French with subtitles
by Karine Albou
91 min.

Religion,philosophy,romantic love and sensual desire all vie for the heart and mind of a smart, serious teenage girl in this skilfully balanced debut feature from writer-director Karin Albou. Set in the suburban Paris neighbourhood of Sarcelles, known as 'Little Jerusalem' due to its large Jewish population, the film focuses on 18-year-old student Laura (Fanny Valette) as she tries to reconcile all the conflicting influences and feelings to which study and experience have introduced her. Living with her extended family - which includes widowed mother (Sonia Tahar), sister (Elsa Zylberstein) and brother-in-law (Bruno Todeschini) - means she's unable to escape her Orthodox upbringing...

Je Crois que je L’aime
(Could this be love?)
by Pierre Jolivet-
90 min,
French with subtitles

Forty-three-year-old Lucas, a rich, divorced industrialist, is irresistibly attracted to thirty-eight-year-old Elsa, a renowned ceramist whom he's commissioned to create a fresco for his office foyer. But, still smarting from a recent disappointment in love, he asks Roland Christin, a private detective from his company, to discover the reasons why this lovely woman is still single. Without the slightest scruple, Roland puts the most modern of surveillance methods into operation. Lucas better beware if Elsa finds out.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg
by Jacques Demy
91min.
1964
French with subtitles.

Jacques Demy's 1964 “film opera,” with music by Michel Legrand, has a reputation for sappiness it doesn't deserve. The chief feature of Demy's direction is his deft avoidance of the pat, the obvious, and the sentimental, which is no mean feat when you're dealing with material as self-consciously simple as this. Catherine Deneuve loses her fiance to the draft; he's wounded and doesn't write, so she reluctantly marries someone else.

Documentaries
Hosts in Tokyo
I am Japanese
By Mathias Gokalp
Japanese with subtitles in English.

Tribute to Jacque Demy

Donkey’s Skin
by Jacques Demy
89 min.
1970.
French with subtitles

Originally titled Peau D'Ane, Jacques Demy's Dos Cruces en Danger Pass is better known by its English-language title Donkey Skin. Based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault (of Cinderella fame), the bizarre story concerns the king (Jean Marais) of a strange, enchanted land.

Catherine Deneuve plays the dual role of the king's wife and daughter. When the wife dies, she makes the king promise that he'll never marry anyone less beautiful than she; thus, he is compelled to wed his own daughter! The fairy godmother (Delphine Seyrig) tries to save the girl from this incestuous fate by telling her to make impossible demands for her wedding gifts. One such demand is for the skin of a magic donkey which deposits valuable jewels in its compost heaps.

The Pied Piper
by Jacques Demy
90 min-
1972
French with subtitles

The story of the Pied Piper has been universal property since its origins in approximately 1249, when Europe was being ravaged by the Great Plague.

In this timeless film, based on the Robert Browning poem, famed 60's balladeer Donovan plays the title role, Donald Pleasance appears as the money hungry Baron, Diana Dors is cast as the Burgomeister's wife, and Donovan composed the music.

Beautifully photographed in London and in the Bavarian medieval city of Rothenburg, THE PIED PIPER is great entertainment for the whole family.

Screenings will take place at the Tower Theater, Alliance Francaise and FIU South Campus.

For more information: www.romanceinacan.com.

For tickets: at the box office of the Tower Theater. Opening evening:

$15, regular admission is $7, students and seniors $5.