Father of my children

UK Release: 5th March

Cannes Film Festival 2009 – Special Prize Un Certain Regard. Grégoire Canvel has everything a man could want. A wife he loves, three delightful children and a stimulating job. He's a film producer. Discovering talented filmmakers and developing films that fit his conception of the cinema-free and true-to-life is precisely his reason for living, his vocation. It fulfils him and Grégoire devotes almost all his time and energy to his work. He's hyperactive, he never stops, except at weekends...

2 Pairs of tickets to be won for the preview screening and Q&A with the director, Mia Mia Hansen-LØve at the French Institute on 3rd March at 8.30pm.

Micmacs

UK release: 26th February

It took Jean-Pierre Jeunet quite some time to start writing again: five years since 'A Very Long Engagement'. It has been well worth the wait. In true Jeunet style, ingenuity and humour are present throughout the film despite its serious subject matter. Indeed, a satirical analysis of the world's arms trade probably wouldn't immediately strike you as slapstick. Jamel Debbouze was originally cast for the film but left after three weeks of filming. He was quickly replaced by Danny Boon, an actor who displays his magnificent skill again. Danny Boon is supported by a strong cast who all seem to have had their role made to measure. Don't go expecting a repeat of Amelie or les Ch'tis - the genre is totally different but better for it.

From Paris with Love

Out now

Contrary to what you might anticipate, this is not a love story. Think more from Russia with Love than Letter to Brezhnev.  An action-packed movie, perhaps not always easy to follow but you won't get bored.
Produced by Luc Besson, this is French Director Pierre Morel's second film after Taken. James, Reese (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) has an enviable life in Paris and a beautiful French girlfriend, but his real passion is his side job as a low-level operative for the CIA. All James wants is to become a bona fide agent and see some real action. So when he's offered his first senior-level assignment, he can't believe his luck...until he meets his new partner, special agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta).

Also to be seen this week

La règle du Jeu - Cine Lumière (South Kensington)
Les Quatre Cents Coups - Rio Cinema (Dalston)
Le Corbeau - Riverside (Hammersmith)

2010 Oscar Nominations

7th March 2010

The 82nd Academy Awards better known as the Oscars, are only days away. Gorgeous actresses and handsome actors, film directors and producers, designers and music writers and anyone who is anyone in the film industry all dressed to kill will be going up the red carpet on the night of the 7th March in the hope of putting their hands on one of those little gold statuettes.
Find out all the nominees for this year's awards.

Special screening of the film David Golder based on Irene Nemirovsky's first novel and attended by Denise Epstein

Monday 8 March 2010, 6.15pm, at Ciné lumière in collaboration with Jewish Book Week.

Denise Epstein will introduce a special screening of David Golder by Julien Duvivier. Harry Baur gives a heart-stopping performance as the rich Jewish businessman who, after the suicide of a friend due to the 1929 economic crisis, goes to join his wife and daughter at their luxurious summer villa in Biarritz. Appalled by their greed and coldness, Golder suffers a heart attack and sees his family for what it is.

4 Pairs of tickets to be won for the special screening and Q&A

EL.FREDO releases two new songs

Released Digitally on 8th March

El.Fredo's two great new releases, Music Hip-Hop and Ce matin (Live a better way) will hit the web on 8th March. El.Fredo was immersed in Hip-Hop Culture from a very early age. He begins his musical career in the Northern quarters of Marseille in 1995. After a tour in Brazil in 2005, he becomes a militant of Hip-Hop Culture and organizes concerts with groups such niggaz and Psy4 de la Rime... Authentic and sincere, his lyrics are true to his own personal experience.

Win his two new releases

The Curve at the Barbican - Céleste Boursier-Mougenot

From 27th to 23rd May 2010

The latest commission for The Curve at the Barbican is by French contemporary artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot and takes the form of a walk-through aviary inhabited by 40 zebra finches. For his first UK solo exhibition Boursier-Mougenot constructed a landscape for the birds using bass guitars and Gibson Les Paul electric guitars as perches, and cymbals as feeders containing water and seeds. As the birds go about their routine activities, settling on the instruments, plucking strings and pecking cymbals they create a chance composition.

Jewish Book Week 2010

From 27th February to 7th March

Jewish Book Week pushes the boundaries a little further every year. From football to philosophy, mathematics to literature, queer theory to justice, the economic crisis to the threats to democracy, Jewish revival in Poland to peace in the Middle East there will be something for everyone. This year, the list of speakers is even more impressive than last year and amongst them five French authors:
- Denise Epstein (Irène Nemirovsky's daughter) and Olivier Philipponnat
- Agnès Desarthe
- Dominique Moïsi
- Helene Cixous

Book your tickets now

Wine Tasting at The Admiralty Restaurant

2 March at at 6.30pm

The Admiralty Restaurant will celebrate "Les vins du Rhône" in partnership with Wine Story. Their wine expert, Thibault Lavergne, has select great wines which will be accompanied by a variety of canapés especially selected to compliment and develop the wine being tasted.

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