Here to entice the French-speaking and cinema-loving community of Paphos is an event coming up next Wednesday screening the feature film Frantz. Perhaps what is even more special about the event, is that an actress who was part of the film will share her backstage experience of the production. Mark your calendars for October 9 and head to Attikon Open Air Theatre for a 7pm screening.
Organised by the French Society of Paphos, the film will be screened in its original language and will include subtitles in French and German. The first half of the French-German co-production is based on the Ernst Lubitsch film The Man Driven by Conscience. Told through a primarily black-and-white lens, the melodrama tells the story of a German woman whose fiancé died in the war, and a French ex-soldier in Germany shortly after the end of the First World War. They meet when the Frenchman visits the fiancé’s grave to lay flowers and in a peculiar twist of fate, the German woman finds out he is the man who killed her fiancé on the battlefield.
Directed by François Ozon, the film was part of the 73rd Venice Film Festival in 2016 and won several awards at international film festivals as well as 11 nominations for the French film award César and two nominations for the 2017 European Film Awards.
Performing in the film is actress Alice Moustier, a Paphos resident who acted as an extra in three scenes. Inspired by the film production experience, she now brings the film to Cyprus and will speak about the film process and more at the event.
Talking about her participation in the film she says: “I wasn’t even allowed to know the plot of the film when I was in it. When I saw the film for the first time in the cinema in 2016, I was very impressed myself. It has a lot to do with my own life, as my French grandparents were always very fond of Germany and my father later emigrated to Germany, so I know only too well the conflicts that still sometimes exist between Germans and French people.”
Frantz
French-German film screening and talk by actress Alice Moustier. October 9. Attikon Open Air Theatre, Paphos. 7pm. Subtitles in French and German. Free. www.alice-moustier.com
