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Opening night will be a ‘Screen-on-the-Green’ double feature Aug. 31
The French-African Voices film festival will provide the campus with a window into the various cultures and languages of the African continent.
The festival, comprised of five films, will have an opening night double feature “Screen-on-the-Green” at 8 and 9 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31 on the Quad. Two other screenings will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 3 and 10 in Limburg Theater and the final screening will at 8 p.m. on Sept. 19 on the Quad. All showings are free and open to the public.
The films -Bamako, Daratt (Dry Season), Days of Glory/Indigenes, Delwende: Love-toi et Marche (Delwende: Get Up and Walk), and Moolade (Sanctuary) – are made by French filmmakers and will include English subtitles.
Mary Toulouse, director of the Foreign Languages and Literatures Resource Center, stresses that although the films are in French, the actors, as well as all the themes, are African. Many native African languages are also used in the films.
Each film will be accompanied by a discussion session with faculty members and online blogs. For a complete schedule, film descriptions, and discussion blogs, go to the French-African Voices web site.
“We wanted to show people more about African life,” says Toulouse. “It’s hard for students, and all of us for that matter, to relate to a people and culture that they know very little about. That makes it hard to talk about, so we want students to become more comfortable with international themes and culture.”
Prior to the Sept. 19 film, students in The Easton High School Red Rovers’ Club will present a short movie about the village in Zambia that they are sponsoring. Led by biology teacher Mike Welsh, the club has raised enough funds to help put 23 young people in school, build 2 huts, and provide food for an orphanage.
The festival is organized by the department of foreign languages and literatures with the support of Cercle francais (French Club), Lafayette’s chapter of Amnesty International, the Association of Lafayette Feminists, Lafayette African and Caribbean Student Association, and International Students Association.
Lafayette’s festival is sponsored by a grant from the Tournees Festival. A program of FACE (French American Cultural Exchange), the Tournees Festival brings contemporary French cinema to American college and university campuses.
The Tournees Festival was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC) and sponsored by the Florence Gould Foundation, the Grand Marnier Foundation, highbrow entertainment, agnes b. and the Franco-American Cultural Fund.