FIAF Virtual CinéSalon Presents PARIS ON FILM

This January and February, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) presents a cinematic escape to the City of Light with the CinéSalon series, Paris on Film. Curated by Richard Peña, Professor of Film Studies professor at Columbia University and the former program director of Film Society of Lincoln Center, it looks at the French capital through nearly 100 years of cinema, from Louis Feuillade's groundbreaking Fantômas (1913) to Djinn Carrénard's intimate Donoma (2010).

Peña stated: "Quite possibly, alongside Hollywood, no place more conjures up the majesty and mystery of the cinema more than Paris, which has ignited the artistic imaginations of generations of filmmakers. To celebrate what's bound to be a much better new year, this wide-ranging sample of films characterizes Paris as not only a background, or a subject, but in a provocative way the co-auteur of these distinctive works."

Since the first public projection of the Lumière cinématographe-December 28, 1895, at the Grand Café-Paris has been a capital of film culture. Not only is it home for influential institutions such as la Cinémathèque Française and magazines such as Cahiers du Cinéma and Positif, but also boasts the highest rate of movie theaters per person in the world.

For this series, Peña, in collaboration with FIAF film curator Delphine Selles-Alvarez, shows how filmmakers eagerly exploited Paris's ability to alter our senses of space and time. At times its luxurious boulevards are wide-open and inviting, while at others its darkened alleyways and shadows hide darker and treacherous secrets.

Peña and Selles-Alvarez will discuss the series in a special live virtual talk on Tuesday, January 19 at 6:30pm.

Through these films the city becomes a mirror responding to political events such as World War II in La Traversée de Paris and The Last Metro; aesthetic movements encapsulated by New Wave icons Agnès Varda in Cléo from 9 to 5 and Jacques Rivette in Paris Belongs to Us; as well as societal and demographic shifts that are at the core of Mathieu Kassovitz's explosive La Haine and Carrénard's Donoma.