After last year’s celebration of presenting two decades of the crème de la crème of French and francophone cinema, this year’s French Film Festival UK in November (7 to 30) comes of age at 21. Among the delights in store for an equally auspicious anniversary are: Maurice Pialat retrospective The retrospective of the director who passed away ten years ago, traces Maurice Pialat's career, from his first vocation, painting, and will include his fir...

Last night in Glasgow, Lionel Bailliu gave a fascinating account on how he had to direct his actors in fairly extreme conditions for Fair Play.Fair Play is a tale of relations at work but, on a larger scale, of human nature in general. Lionel Bailliu has expanded from his highly successful (Oscar-nominated!) short film Squash.You can catch Lionel at Q&A's in Edinburgh tomorrow night (screenings at 2.30pm and 6pm, followed by Q&A) and in London (CineLumiere) on Sunday (screening at 6.30pm...

Lola Doillion's presentation and Q&A last night at the GFT in Glasgow was a great success. Her film (Just about Love) is a challlenging one in which language (teenspeake) plays an important part. Questions on translations and scripting where discussed.Lola presented the motivation for her film and her approach to a cast on untrained but fresh and enthusiastic teenagers she had basically recruited in the metro in Paris.Lola Doillon was of course charming throughout. You can still catch Lola a...

Just one week to go before the opening of the French Film Festival UK. In the meantime and to whet your appetite, you might want to have a look at the festival trailer (see videos section). The trailer was produced by SkyArts, one of the festival partner and frankly I quite like it!Before the festival kicks off simultaneously in 10 cities across the UK, the French Institute in Edinburg will open an photographic exhibition by  award-winning photographer Fabrizio Maltese. Maltese tours the inte...