Festival showcase for French films

Self-taught, Seraphine Louis (1864-1942) was an exemplar of the Naive Movement, which is to say art characterized by a deceptively childlike simplicity in technique and subject matter.

Also known as Seraphine de Senlis, she drew inspiration from elements of her faith, specifically stained-glass church windows and other religious iconography.

Yet some felt the intensity of her work was more self-revelatory, a reflection of her own psychological divide between ecstasy and madness.

Director Martin Provost's "Seraphine," winner of seven Cesars (French Oscars), chronicles the tragic story of a simple servant who, discovered by prominent German critic and collector William Uhde, came to prominence between the world wars before a descent into mental illness and obscurity.

To be screened at 7:30 p.m. Friday and preceded by a reception at 6:30, the film is one of the showcase events of the third Alliance Francaise Francophone Film Festival, which runs Thursday through Nov. 8 at the MUSC Institute of

Psychiatry Auditorium in honor of National French Week.

There is a suggested donation of $2 per film, and seating is limited.

Directed by Josette Sharwell, the festival is presented by Alliance Francaise with support from the American Association of Teachers of French, the Quebec Delegation in Atlanta, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and CulturesFrance.

Opening the festival Thursday will be a reprise of Oscar-winner Claude Lelouch's engaging thriller-romance "Roman de Gare" ("Crossed Tracks") a Cannes Film Festival selection centering on three lives that intersect with very unpredictable results, much of it amid the clamor of Cannes and the lush Beaune wine country. Dominique Pinon and Fanny Ardant star in a movie marked by playfulness, tension and unexpected shifts of tone.

The festival also features the U.S. premiere of "Largo Winch," featuring a Jason Bourne-like comic book hero.

Madame Ginette Chenard, the Cultural Attache from the Quebec delegation in Atlanta, will present the Canadian (Quebec) feature "C'est pas moi, je le jure" ("It's Not Me, I Swear") on Nov. 8. Bringing down the curtain on the festival is "Le Couperet" ("The Ax"), a black comedy from Costa-Gavras.

All films are in French with English subtitles, save for "Largo Winch" which has dialogue in multiple languages.

Go online at www.afusa.org/af/charleston or call 235-6447.

The slate

7 p.m. Thursday: "Roman de Gare" ("Crossed Tracks"). Writer-director Claude Lelouch pulled off a rare coup in 1966 when his original screenplay for "A Man and a Woman" won the Academy Award, seldom achieved by foreign-language films. And he's up to his old audience-teasing tricks here.

7:30 p.m. Friday: "Seraphine." A celebrated film bio of a celebrated artist, it covers the rise and fall of French painter Seraphine de Senlis.

5 p.m. Saturday: "L'Heure Zero" ("Towards Zero"). Taken from an Agatha Christie tale, it's an old-fashioned mystery set in cliff-top mansion in the Brittany resort of Dinard.

7:30 p.m. Saturday: "Largo Winch." Directed by Jerome Salle, the movie is based on the first four volumes of the popular Belgian-French comic "Bandes Dessinees," starring the Croatian-born, globe-trotting international hero Largo (Tomer Sisley).

2 p.m. Nov. 8: "C'est pas moi, je le jure" ("It's Not Me, I Swear"). Dubbed "Home Alone in Montreal" by some critics, reveals life through the perspective of a 10-year-old run rampant in 1960s Quebec. The film captured Best Feature and Grand Prize awards at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival.

4:30 p.m. Nov. 8: "Le Couperet" ("The Ax"). Costa-Gavras' exercise in dark humor suggests the comic sensibility of film like "Kind Hearts and Coronets," but takes its story from a novel by Donald Westlake.

Reach Bill Thompson at 937-5707.