Five Funny French Films
French films play a significant role in world cinema, and the MFAH film program offers a variety year-round. In 2011, the MFAH launched the showcase Five Funny French Films to explore the comedy genre. The first two editions were great successes, with standing-room-only crowds. Each series features new French films that have been popular crowd-pleasers. The 2013 series takes place Thursday to Sunday, March 21 to March 24 and offers un petit extra with an additional film by Pierre Etaix.
Presented during French Cultures Festival 2013 with generous support from L'Alliance Francaise de Houston; The French Embassy/French Cultural Services; the Consulate General of France in Houston; Texan-French Alliance for the Arts; and Nina and Michael Zilkha.
Special thanks to John Kochman (UniFrance USA).
Past Films in This Series
Les émotifs anonymes
2010, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Jean-Pierre Améris
Romantics Anonymous tells the story of Angélique (Isabelle Carré, Private Fears in Public Places), a gifted chocolate-maker whose uncontrollable shyness prevents her from acknowledging her talents. Struggling chocolatier Jean-René (Benoît Poelvoorde, Coco Before Chanel), who also suffers from a similar case of awkward bashfulness that threatens to drown his company, hires Angelique as his new sales associate. Realizing she’s attracted to her boss, Angelique decides to anonymously develop a new line of chocolates to save the company. With the future of the ...
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Intouchables
2011, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
TICKETS FOR THIS FILM ARE SOLD OUT Based on wealthy businessman Philippe Pozzo di Borgo’s memoir recounting his paragliding accident that left him a quadriplegic, art house cinema star François Cluzet (Tell No One) plays the handicapped millionaire who develops an unlikely friendship with his hot-headed, uninhibited Algerian caregiver (Omar Sy, dubbed “the French Eddie Murphy,” in a breakout role). Shattering box office records in France, Untouchable has been saluted for revolutionizing how French society views itself – and has been optioned ...
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2010, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Michel Leclerc
Jean-Paul Rouve is Dagobert, a pathologically anxious industrial spy who just boarded a very cheap flight in Djerba, Tunisia. After eight long hours without air conditioning, the passengers are told that the plane is not going to take off. In a moment of bravado, intended to impress sexy airline stewardess Nuance(Judith Godrèche), Dagobert starts a mutiny. Among the passengers is Jean-Claude (Gérard Darmon, from Betty Blue and Diva), a former airline pilot going through a deep depression. Although he is ...
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Le nom des gens
2010, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Michel Leclerc
Baya Benmahmoud, a young, extroverted liberal, lives by the old hippie slogan: “Make love, not war” to convert right-wing men to her left-wing political causes by sleeping with them. She seduces many and so far has received exceptional results – until she meets Arthur Martin, a Jewish middle-aged, middle-of-the road scientist. Bound by common tragic family histories (the Algerian War and Holocaust under Vichy), the duo improbably falls in love. Amid the bubbly amour, humorous lasciviousness and moments of sheer ...
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Mon pire cauchemar
2011, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Anne Fontaine
Agathe (Isabelle Huppert) is an uptight, impatient art dealer who lives in an expensive Parisian apartment with her wealthy publisher husband, Andre Dussollier (Unforgivable). Patrick (Benoît Poelvoorde from Romantics Anonymous, a hit at last year's Five Funny French Films) is a skirt-chasing, unemployed single father who lives in his van with his son. Agathe’s and Patrick’s lives would never intersect except that their two sons are best of friends, and her husband has hired Patrick to remodel their apartment. Hilarity ensues ...
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Le prénom
2012, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte
Vincent (Patrick Bruel), a successful 40-something, is about to become a father for the first time. He is invited for dinner by his sister and brother-in-law (Valérie Benguinui and Charles Berling), where they catch up with a childhood friend (Guillaume de Tonquédec). While waiting for Vincent’s wife (Judith El Zein), always behind schedule, the dinner guests gleefully bombard Vincent with questions on his fast-approaching fatherhood. But when his hosts ask Vincent what name he has chosen for this future offspring, ...
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Tout ce qui brille
2010, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Hervé Mimran and Géraldine Nakache
All That Glitters is a surprisingly unpretentious comedy that speaks to the aspirations and angst of many twentysomethings enthralled by the world of glamour and fashion. The film is anchored by the friendship of two central characters, who infuse the story with their daring and their dreams. All That Glitters proves once again that European cinema is decades ahead in the realm of entertainment targeting teenage girls: It is stylish, energetic, mischievous—and glittering.
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Le Skylab
2011, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Julie Delpy
Invoking her 11-year-old self as the precocious Albertine, Julie Delpy sets this film in July 1979, as news reports predict that the 850-ton space station Skylab will soon crash to earth in France. That provides the subplot for the summer holidays, in a house somewhere in Brittany, where a boisterous extended family (parents, uncles, aunts, cousins and other relatives) are gathered to celebrate the birthday of Granny Amandine (Emmanuelle Riva from Amour). Drama and dysfunction unfold among the assortment of ...
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Mince alors!
2012, in French with English subtitles
Directed by Charlotte de Turckheim
Nina (Lola Dewaere) and her husband, Gaspard (Grégory Fitoussi), run a successful swimsuit company in Paris. Only too happy to get time alone with his mistress, Gaspard offers Nina a one-month weight-loss program in the Alps. At the spa, Nina is befriended by two women with big personalities: Emilie (Catherine Hosmalin), the warm, full-figured homemaker who claims that "big is beautiful" but comes to the spa every year and won’t admit that she is not as happy or healthy as she appears; ...
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