Episode 1: Homecoming
Manuela reports back from our hometown and the French cultural conversations she already got a sense of there
Before she sets off to Paris, Manuela spends a week in Clermont-Ferrand, our hometown. In the centre of France, it is home to the world’s most important short film festival, and perhaps for this reason it boasts a great array of different cinemas showing the (many) films that get released in France every week.
At Le Capitole, a 5-screen cinema on the Place de Jaude, the main square of the city, she went to see ALL TO PLAY FOR (RIEN À PERDRE) by Delphine Deloget, only to realise she’d seen it before in Cannes earlier this year. This says something about how memorable the film is, and about a kind of French social drama that is being made in significant numbers these days. I mention HER WAY (UNE FEMME DU MONDE) by Cécile Ducrocq, from 2021, starring Laure Calamy as a sex worker trying to earn more money to put her son through cooking school; and another Laure Calamy-starrer, FULL TIME (À PLEIN TEMPS) by Éric Gravel, which came out in the UK (and which I reviewed here) and follows a woman who works in a hotel and is affected by a transport strike that puts her livelihood in jeopardy.
Full price tickets at Le Capitole are €10.90, and €7 for people 26 and under.
trigger warning: discussion of sexual abuse, paedophilia
CONSENT (LE CONSENTEMENT) by Vanessa Filho is based on the autobiography by Vanessa Springora, about her own experience being groomed and sexually abused as a child by French novelist and memoirist Gabriel Matzneff, who not only acted with impunity, but wrote about his acts in details in his work. But while this is a personal story, it also tells us a lot about French society back in the 1980s, but also more recently: it took Springora publishing her book for Matzneff’s editor to drop him.
Manuela went to see the film in part because our 19-year-old brother Luka and a friend of his wanted to see it, too. The film’s box office has grown week on week as young people on French TikTok began talking about the film and recommending other people see it.
Also discussed here is nepotism, a topic that will no doubt return in future episodes…
Manuela saw CONSENT at the Pathé Aubière, a multiplex formerly known as Le Cinédôme. This is where Manuela and I went to see films with our family when we were little, during our rare cinema trips.
But now, under Pathé ownership, this once very grey place looks like a cartoon spaceship.
Inside the Pathé Aubière. Yes, The Holdovers is titled Winter Break
Full price tickets at Pathé Aubière cost €14.60, while students pay €11.20. For the IMAX however, add €6.
€19.60 was how much Manuela paid for her ticket to Ridley Scott’s NAPOLEON, and while the man is an important French figure, only 15 other people turned up for the 5.30pm screening on the day of release — which is probably down to the screening’s awkward timing, since France was the second biggest market for the film in Europe during its first five days of release, behind only the UK.
The mood inside Les Ambiances
Another cinema we talk about on this episode is Les Ambiances, near the Place de Jaude, which is my favourite. This 3-screen cinema isn’t an independent either, but its programming is decidedly arthouse, and it frequently hosts screenings and events from other organisations, as well as Q&As and post-film debates. They can also screen films from 35mm. A full-price ticket costs €9.10, while students or people under 26 pay €6.10 (slightly cheaper than Le Capitole).
Le Rio is the only associative and independent cinema in the area of Clermont-Ferrand and its surroundings. It has one screen and 159 seats, and can also show 35mm. Its programme includes arthouse films, medium-length films, themed rep series in partnership with other organisations, and kids films. A full-price, standard ticket costs €7.50, while students and people under 25 pay €5.50. The cheapest by far!
If you have any questions (or Paris tips) for Manuela or me, you can reach out on Instagram at @animus_mag, on BlueSky at @animusmagazine.bsky.social, or by email at contact@animusmagazine.com.
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–Elena Lazic
