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A bouquet of French films

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: Cochin Film Society's tour to world cinema continues. After festivals of Cuban and Italian films, now it is time for a festival of 50 short films in French.

The festival, organised by Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum and the French Embassy in association with Cochin Film Society, C-hed, Corporation of Cochin, Chetana Media Institute, Thrissur and Chavara Cultural Centre, is an assortment of short films made between 2004 and 2006.

Titled Voyages En Courts, the festival has films of four minutes to 22 minutes duration. The festival will be held at EMS Memorial Town Hall on April 19, 20 and 21.

Most of the films are about moments, at times absurd, like the 4-minute Bouts En Train, which has the passengers lost in their thoughts and suddenly find themselves sharing an incident and thus joining in a song. It could be a moment that seem to extend to infinity, as portrayed in another 4-minute-film The Kiss, where a young woman is waiting for her beloved for the first kiss.

The festival also demonstrates how a social issue could be expressed through a short film, as in The Corridor, where a young couple is faced with a financial crisis. The man is jobless and wanders along the streets with no way to buy any food. The film is just 15 minutes long.

In 5 minutes, Overtime depicts the predicament of little rag-dolls that find their maker dead in his studio. Nevertheless, they return to their daily routine. The 13-minute Somewhere has Simon who is contend with the constant repetition of daily routine and is disturbed when someone gets in the way.

Men from Outer Space is about being a young person in a world ruled by old people, where the latter is overwhelming in number and power.

The festival will also be the last before Cochin Film Society takes a short break to gear up for the International Film Festival being organised in association with Corporation.

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