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FILM

French cinema club for English speakers has new online screenings

Lost in Frenchlation is back this week with another virtual screening of a French movie with English subtitles, plus a special collaborative project aimed at strengthening social bonds during the pandemic.

Published: 8 April 2021 10:32 CEST
French cinema club for English speakers has new online screenings
French cinemas have been closed for months. Photo: Stéphane DE SAKUTIN / AFP

What is happening?

Lost in Frenchlation, a cinema group that regularly screens French films with English subtitles in Paris, hosts virtual screenings every Friday until cinemas reopen in France.

This week they are also asking for your help with a special project.

Which film is on this week?

The next screening is on April 9th at 8pm (Paris time) and the movie is called Les Parfums (Perfumes).

Fans of the French TV series Dix pour cent (Call my agent!) will recognise one of the leading characters as the adorable, albeit bumbling, Gabriel (Grégory Montel).

REVEALED: The French in-jokes from TV series Call My Agent

For a fuller description, and more info on upcoming events, see the Facebook event (link here). 

The screening will be followed by a discussion with director Grégory Magne.

If you want to watch the movie trailer, check out the video below:

Who can access?

This screening will be limited to France only, so those interested must confirm their location in order to purchase tickets, however some screenings are also open to audiences outside France.

Tickets cost €6 and can be found here.

What about that special project?

Back in May last year, Lost in Frenchlation embarked on a collaborative project that aimed to strengthen social bonds during the pandemic.

Inspired by Chris Marker’s 1963 film Le Joli Mai (The Lovely Month of May) they asked Parisians to connect with strangers in the street and film the interaction. 

On Thursday, April 8th, the group launched a crowdfunding campaign where anyone who wants to help finance the post-production of the film may contribute. Full details HERE.

What is Lost in Frenchlation?

Lost in Frenchlation is a group that sets up screenings of French films with English subtitles to give the international community access to French culture and meet others in the same situation.

READ ALSO Why the French passion for dubbing films shows no sign of dying out

Usually the screenings in Paris are preceded with drinks, but since Covid-19 forced cinemas across France to close their doors that has no longer been feasible. 

On the plus side, the virtual screenings are available across France, meaning not just Parisians will be able to access French films with English subtitles.

In addition to the online screenings, Lost in Frenchlation has launched a VOD page (link here) with more than 70 French films available to watch with subtitles in different foreign languages, including, of course, English.

For more information, check out their website or sign up to their newsletter (link here).

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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