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CULTURE

French films with English subtitles to watch in January 2024

Lost in Frenchlation - the cinema club that screens French films with English subtitles - has a strong offering for January 2024, including a swashbuckling adventure and a blockbuster comedy.

Published: 21 December 2023 08:28 CET
French films with English subtitles to watch in January 2024
(Photo by LOIC VENANCE / AFP)

Lost in Frenchlation isn’t slowing down in its mission to introduce anglophones to French cinema. As 2024 dawns, it has arranged seven screenings in the first month alone.

Here’s what’s on offer.

Soudain Seuls (Suddenly Alone)

Details  Friday, January 5th, at Club de L’Étoile (14, rue Troyon, Paris). Themed walking tour starting at 5pm, drinks from 7pm, screening at 8pm. Tickets €8-€10 available here.

Thomas Bidegain’s castaway drama stars Gilles Lellouche and Mélanie Thierry as a couple whose planned relationship-saving round-the-world sailing adventure turns into a battle for life and death after a violent storm off the South American coast forces them to seek shelter in an abandoned whaling station.

La Vénus d’Argent (Spirit of Ecstasy)

Details  Thursday, January 11th, at Luminor (20 Rue du Temple, Paris). Drinks from 7pm, screening at 8pm, followed by a Q&A with director Héléna Klotz. Tickets €7-€11 available here.

The 24-year-old daughter (Jeanne Francoeur) of a single police officer father sets out to make it in the world of finance – and discovers money isn’t the root of all happiness.

Vigneronnes (Winegrowers)

Details  Sunday, January 14th, at Luminor (20 Rue du Temple, Paris). Wine and cheese tasting with Emily Lester Fouilleroux from 7pm, screening at 8pm. Tickets €7-€11 available here.

Film-maker Guillaume Bodin follows a handful of female winemakers in this heartstring-tugging documentary.

La Fille de son Père (No Love Lost)

Details  Friday, January 19th, at L’Entrepôt (7 Rue Francis de Pressensé, Paris). Drinks from 7pm, Screening at 8pm, followed by a Q&A with director Erwan Le Duc. Tickets €7-€8.50 available here.

A bittersweet, occasionally laugh-out-loud tale of a single father who – as his daughter turns 16 – recognises his ex-wife during a television news report. The past, as it is wont to do, duly resurfaces in chaotic style… Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, and Céleste Brunnquell star.

Chien de la Casse (Junkyard Dog)

Details  Sunday, January 21st, at Le Balzac (1 Rue Balzac, Paris). Drinks from 7pm, Screening at 8pm, followed by a Q&A with director Erwan Le Duc. Tickets €3.50 on the door, or available online here.

First love intrudes on the childhood friendship of two young men (Anthony Bajon and Raphaël Quenard) in the sleepy south of France.

Les Trois Mousquetaires: Milady (The Three Musketeers: Milady)

Details  Thursday, January 25th, at L’Arlequin (76 Rue de Rennes, Paris). Women of Paris tour from 4:30pm, Drinks from 7pm, Screening at 8pm. Tickets €8.50 – €11.

Swashes are buckled from the opening prison-break-with-moat-dive scene to the last while Eva Green smoulders in the second instalment of Martin Bourboulon’s hectic 21st-century take on the classic French tale.

Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks)

Details  Monday, January 29th, at Luminor (20 Rue du Temple, Paris). Drinks from 7pm, stand-up comedy with Hugo Gertner and screening at 8pm. Tickets €12 – €16.

Post office mandarin Kad Merad is transferred from his cushy and only slightly fraudulently obtained job in the Côte d’Azur to a one-horse town in the far north of France. Dany Boon directs and stars in the box-office smash of a feelgood comedy. 

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CULTURE

Backstage artisans keep Moulin Rouge kicking

Even with the famous sails of its windmill gone, the Moulin Rouge never lets up: twice a night, 365 nights a year, in a whirlwind of feathers, rhinestones and sequins.

Published: 6 May 2024 08:13 CEST
Backstage artisans keep Moulin Rouge kicking

The sails of the 135-year-old cabaret in the Montmartre district of Paris collapsed last month — the cause remains unknown.

But with some 1,700 spectators still coming every evening, the show must go on. And while the 60-strong troupe of “Doriss Girls” — named after legendary choreographer Doris Haung — get all the attention, creating and maintaining their costumes is another huge and highly skilled job.

The show has daunting annual requirements: nearly 1,000 tailor-made outfits each requiring up to 250 hours of assembly, 800 pairs of shoes, and not forgetting the three kilometres of ostrich-feather boas.

READ MORE: 5 things to know about Paris’ iconic Moulin Rouge

The clacking of sewing machines backstage is a near-constant soundtrack before and after — and sometimes during — shows.

“We are on every evening. The costumes wear out… But the show must always be the same, at the highest quality,” the cabaret’s general director, Jean-Victor Clerico, 38, told AFP.

In the same family for four generations, the Moulin Rouge started buying up small artisan workshops in the 2000s — partly experts in featherwork and embroidery — that were struggling to survive in modern-day Paris.

“These artisans are a living heritage that risked disappearing, and they are essential for the show,” said Clerico.

“It was the duty of the Moulin to perpetuate their existence and allow the transmission of their knowledge to younger generations,” he added.

Mine Verges, 88, a costume designer since the 1960s, was one of the first to come under the Moulin’s umbrella.

Her workshop supplies and maintains the troupe, as well as many other clients.

“The most complicated costumes are those of the cabaret. Everything must be much more solid than normal clothing, and when there are feathers, it must above all be pleasant for the dancers,” she told AFP.

“Le Moulin was the first cabaret with whom I worked and it will be the last,” she said, adding that she was pleased her savoir-faire will be passed down.

Featherwork

Supplier to haute couture houses such as Hermes and Louis Vuitton, Maison Fevrier was set up in 1929 and is the last featherwork workshop in the heart of Paris.

Its “plumasserie” (fine feather work) has been officially recognised as a “living heritage” by the French government.

It became part of the Moulin family in 2009 and handles some three tonnes of ostrich, pheasant and rooster feathers for the cabaret each year.

Embroidery is handled by Atelier Valentin using the ancestral technique of Luneville crochet and chain stitch.

“The marvellous has always fascinated me. There is no limit to what you can embroider: sequins, pearls, rhinestones, repurposed metal pieces… The only imperative for a stage costume is to be strong,” said its director, Caroline Valentin, whose other clients including the Paris Opera, Disney, Givenchy and the Academie Francaise.

Shoes are another integral part of the show, especially for the energetic high-kicking antics of the Can-Can that conclude every evening.

Clairvoy, a cobblers founded in 1945, has been part of the Moulin’s operation since 2007.

Nicolas Maistriaux, 45, and his team make the troupe’s shoes, taking up to 60 hours to assemble each pair, not counting their maintenance and renewal when the dancers’ heels wear them out.

Kylie Minogue also called on Maison Clairvoy for her recent tour.

“Our jobs are rewarding beyond anything,” said Valentin. “We have the absolutely immense chance to create beauty… That’s what artistic craftsmanship is all about.”

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