SOLL’s cinéclub – join the French film screenings this semester
This semester, students, staff and community members have the opportunity to get together and watch select French films, in a series of screenings hosted by SOLL’s French Film Club.
To find out more about this exciting initiative, Monica interviewed Conall Cash, a French Studies Lecturer and organiser of the French Film Club.
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Can you tell me a bit about the film screening series you’re facilitating? Where did the impetus to start it come from?
The film series (or cinéclub) has been going since the start of Semester 2, 2022. We screen notable French or Francophone films, with an introduction to the film by the programmer (sometimes myself, another member of the French Studies academic staff, or an invited guest with particular knowledge of a certain film, filmmaker, or its larger context). We also provide some snacks and drinks for people to hang around and talk about the film afterwards.
The impetus for organising it was to create a space on campus a little adjacent to the classroom setting, where a mix of students and others from the university community could engage with French and Francophone culture in a slightly different context. With different speakers getting to choose and introduce the films each time, it’s an opportunity to bring together the broad range of people in Melbourne with a love of French and Francophone cinema, and to think about how cinema can be this kind of space, one which is neither strictly educational nor simply frivolous, but a meeting-place. As the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard says, cinema is “the goodwill for a meeting” – the openness to meeting others and encountering the world differently.
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What films have been screened so far, and will be screened in the future, and why?
Although this wasn’t entirely planned, the series this semester has come to focus primarily on a certain significant but somewhat under recognised period and group of filmmakers: what could be called the post-nouvelle vague period of the 1970s and 80s (with reference to the nouvelle vague or New Wave of the late 50s and 60s, which transformed French and global cinema). Such post-nouvelle vague films we’ve shown so far are Maurice Pialat’s A nos amour (To Our Loves) and Jacques Rivette’s Le pont du nord, and some future screenings we have planned form part of the same constellation, such as Michèle Rosier’s Mon coeur est rouge (My Heart Is Red), screening on next Monday, September 5.
We have shown one film of the New Wave period – Agnès Varda’s Le bonheur (Happiness), from 1964 – but even this film is a little separate from the recognised works of that movement, given Varda’s somewhat outsider status, both as a woman and as someone who did not have a specifically cinephilic background, but came to cinema with a wider range of artistic interests, and a singular sensibility. Essentially, I’ve wanted everyone involved to choose films they are passionate about, so that they can speak to that passion in how they introduce the films, and I think that is why we’ve put together a program that is a little different from the recognised classics (not that I’m averse to showing some of those!). Each presenter has spoken about something transformative in the experience of watching these films. Although many recognised classics can do this, it can be harder to have that experience with a film weighed down by a big reputation, so I think gravitating towards these films that come after the heyday of the nouvelle vague has been a way for us to find new things to say and to (hopefully) awaken a more curious and passionate engagement in those watching, rather than too much of an educational mission to show the films everyone ‘should see.’
Other upcoming films are Jean Eustache’s La manan et la putain and Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, both of which are also important post-New Wave films. But then we’ll end the semester with an earlier, pre-New Wave film, a very joyous and bright film, after seeing some harsher films earlier in the semester: Jean Renoir’s French Cancan. It should be a great film to end the semester with a bang. This semester has focused on films from metropolitan France (and Belgium, in one case), but we plan to expand beyond that when we return next year, to include films from the larger Francophone world, as well as French films which reflect on French colonial history.
Still from Michèle Rosier’s Mon coeur est rouge
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How have the films screened so far been received by the audience?
A range of people with various levels of prior interest and background have come along, including a nice mix of earlier undergrads as well as some postgrads and some academic staff. Students have reacted well to the challenge and the playfulness of the films we’ve shown, based on the feedback I’ve got so far. We’ve had students studying French come and bring their friends who maybe study other things but are interested in the experience and in the opening to another culture that it provides.
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So anyone is welcome to the screenings?
Yes, everyone is welcome! Not just for French language students, though we certainly encourage our students to attend. The screenings are also advertised online through the French Club, which holds a variety of events on campus that are open to any students who have an interest in being involved.
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Why do you think extracurricular activities like this matter (for language learners or for uni students and staff more broadly)?
Obviously after the past two years, we’re all still getting used to campus being an active and social place, and so I hope that this series can contribute to that. As I said earlier, I think cinema can have a particular capacity to create these kinds of spaces where you can encounter something new and strange, and interact with others through this shared experience of something that you’ve opened yourself to. Having introductions to films rather than conventional lectures also speaks to this different way of forming a public, if you like – the speaker isn’t intoning knowledge, but offering some clues about how to engage, how to be receptive to what a film is doing and to how it is allowing you to see things, if you open yourself to that experience.
Thanks so much for taking the time to introduce the SOLL community to this exciting initiative!
Michèle Rosier’s Mon coeur est rouge (My Heart Is Red) will be screened on Monday 5 September, at 6.30pm in Arts West 353. More information is available here.