The 51th Hong Kong French Film Festival

Hong Kong French Film Festival is celebrating its 51st edition this year, from November 13 to December 13, 2022, with more than 150 screenings at 6 cinemas across Hong Kong, including Hong Kong City Hall, Broadway Cinematheque, MOViE MOViE Pacific Place, PALACE ifc, Premiere Elements, and M+ Cinema.

To top last year’s audience of more than 11,000, the Festival this year presents a great selection of 56 films, including 37 new films of which four are documentary, 10 programmes are dedicated to Claire Denis, and 9 retrospective films in tribute to Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Luc Godard and Gaspard Ulliel.

Cinema: a reflection of society

Cinema is a reflection of society. Questions are constantly being raised, and discussions are brought up through the big screen. The 2022 film selection is committed to raising awareness towards the fight for women, and features the premiere of ‘Simone: The Journey Of The Century’, a biopic directed by Olivier Dahan (La Môme) with Elsa Zylberstein and Rebecca Marder. Simone Veil is one of the most prominent women in France in the 20th century. The film is an intimate and epic portrait of an extraordinary woman who eminently challenged and transformed her era; her humanist message is still keenly relevant today.

The Festival also sheds the spotlight on social resilience through a selection of films, including ‘The Sixth Child’ (Le Sixième Enfant) by Léopold Legrand and ‘The Super-8 Years’ (Les Années Super 8) which talks about family and motherhood. Directed by the 2022 Nobel Prize awardee, Annie Ernaux, who is one of the very important writers of contemporary French literature, ‘The Super-8 Year’ is a short documentary that opens a treasure trove of her family’s memory through the lens.

Other notable films include ‘One Year, One Night’ (Un an, une nuit), ‘Paris Memories’ (Revoir Paris) and ‘November’ (Novembre). These films are screened exclusively at the Festival and being released at the same time in France. Cinephiles would be able to watch the newest release from Hong Kong.

Fever Dreams: The Cinema of Claire Denis

The Festival is thrilled to co-present ‘Fever Dreams: The Cinema of Claire Denis’ with M+, the first global museum of contemporary visual culture in Asia, as part of M+ Cinema’s Autumn 2022 screening programme.

This focus programme celebrates the illustrious career of French filmmaker, Claire Denis. In the past thirty years and through her rich body of work, Denis’s films have delved into the mystifying desires of the human heart and the ubiquitous impact of colonialism. Her elliptical storytelling and mood-inducing images evoke our innermost primal instincts and reveal marks left on the human psyche by sociocultural developments. Whether portraying the unadulterated beauty of human connection in ‘Chocolat’ (1988) and ‘35 Shots of Rum’ (2008) or grappling with our destructive tendencies in ‘Bastards’ (2013) and ‘Trouble Every Day’ (2001), Denis takes audiences to places where few filmmakers would dare.

A tribute to Jean -Louis Trintignant, Jean-Luc Godard and Gaspard Ulliel

In 2022, the world lost two significant French movie icons, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who appeared in more than 200 films with a career spanning seven decades, and Jean-Luc Godard, the legendary Franco-Swiss director of the French New Wave.

In the beginning of the year, Gaspard Ulliel passed away at only 37 years old. The Hong Kong French Film Festival is honored to have welcomed Gaspard Ulliel in 2014. He was kind and dedicated to promoting French films to Hong Kong cinephiles.

In light of the loss of the three significant French movie actors and director, a selection of 9 films is dedicated to their memory. The selection of the works of Jean-Louis Trintignant includes ‘My Night at Maud’s’ (Ma nuit chez Maud), ‘A Man and a Woman’ (Un Homme Et Une Femme), ‘The Most Beautiful Years of a Life’, and ‘Amour’. In memory of Jean-Luc Godard, the classic ‘Breathless and Pierrot le Fou’ will be screened. ‘A Very Long Engagement’ (Un Long Dimanche De Fiancailles) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and ‘It’s Only The End Of The World’ (Juste La Fin Du Monde) by Xavier Dolan will be presented in honor of Gaspard Ulliel.

Q&A Zoom sessions

A series of post-screenings Q&A Zoom sessions will be organized with Davy Chou, the director of ‘Return to Seoul’, and Caroline Monnet, the director of ‘Bootlegger’.

For more info on films, schedule and ticketing:  
https://www.hkfrenchfilmfestival.com/