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Pardon my French!
Source:Global Times Published: 2016-3-8 18:23:02
March festival celebrates the diversity and richness of a language
The Francophonie Festival, an event promoting the French language, will be celebrated again in China from March 10 to 30. Jointly organized by embassies, the International Organisation of La Francophonie, and Chinese partners, the festival annually attracts thousands of people from different fields, including music, art, cinema, sport, literature and gastronomy, all of them linked by a love or interest in the French language.
French has 274 million speakers and another 125 million study it. The accent for the festival is on sharing values and exchanging cultural diversity.
Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, the French Ambassador to China, and Guy Saint-Jacques, the Canadian Ambassador to China, said in a joint statement that the French language was a tool for competitiveness and innovation, a vector for communication and culture, and a bearer of hope and refinement.
"La Francophonie offers some bright development prospects for China, where a knowledge of French opens up a range of professional and educational opportunities. This 21st Francophonie Festival will be held under the banner of youth, creativity and innovation," they said.
French karaoke
Indeed, the festival has come up with some modern and fun ways to celebrate French.
To find your nearest participating karaoke bar, check out francophonie.faguowenhua.com.
You can also take a tour of the language with a dictation game on WeChat (id:faguowenhua).
This was launched in late February and will be available throughout March. Inspired by Pivot Dictation (a French word game), the WeChat version introduces new French expressions, and players will have a chance to win a trip to Switzerland and France.
The 29 finalists will go to Beijing for a showdown in the Swiss Residence, which will be transformed into an elegant examination hall for the occasion.
The competition is under the patronage of Bernard Pivot, the noted French journalist, critic and television host, and the founder of Pivot Dictation.
A diverse array
The 2016 Mars en Folie (March madness) is the musical side of the festival and will present 30 concerts of quintessentially French music in 14 cities.
Shanghai will be able to enjoy this diverse array of indie pop, punk, jazz and rap on March 12.
The concert will feature indie pop and romantic and philosophical interludes from Nicolas Michaux with ballroom punk chanson from Fabian Tharin.
The eccentric French singer Matthieu Chedid, aka Mister-M- (below), will share the stage with rock singer Izia, who will be performing in China for the first time, at the MAO Livehouse on March 25.
Exhibitions and cinematic delights
As part of the festival, there will be a major retrospective of Alberto Giacometti, the famous Swiss sculptor, artist, draftsman and print-maker, at the Yuz Museum.
The show, organized by the Yuz Museum's founder Budi Tek and the Giacometti Foundation's director Catherine Grenier, brings together 240 original works - bronzes, drawings, paintings, engravings and photographs - that span the artist's early creations, cubist and surrealist periods, through to the slim-line figures of the 1960s.
Adrien Gardere, a designer and museographer from the Louvre, has created an original presentation for the occasion by setting up a dozen spaces, each with a different theme - for example the artist's relationship to Paris, or his obsession with the human head.
As part of the retrospective, Loic Corbery, regarded as one of the most talented French actors of his generation, will perform Alberto Giacometti's Workshop alongside Chinese actor Zhou Yemang.
Together, they will perform extracts from the book, The Studio of Alberto Giacometti by the famed novelist Jean Genet.
Also opening in Shanghai on March 18 will be Gueules de Vignerons, an exhibition of the pictures of vineyards and winemakers by the France-based author-photographer Jean-Yves Bardin.
The exhibition reveals the stories behind the enigmatic shapes of vines and, grapes and the people who tend them.
The French-speaking world will showcase its cinematic diversity in a selection of 22 films from March 11 to 29. This film festival includes feature films from France, Mauritania, Madagascar and Quebec, a comedy from Luxembourg, animation from Uruguay, and a documentary from Austria.
Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, known for his poignant films about exile and the director of Timbuktu will come to Shanghai to present the film.
French has 274 million speakers and another 125 million study it. The accent for the festival is on sharing values and exchanging cultural diversity.
Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, the French Ambassador to China, and Guy Saint-Jacques, the Canadian Ambassador to China, said in a joint statement that the French language was a tool for competitiveness and innovation, a vector for communication and culture, and a bearer of hope and refinement.
"La Francophonie offers some bright development prospects for China, where a knowledge of French opens up a range of professional and educational opportunities. This 21st Francophonie Festival will be held under the banner of youth, creativity and innovation," they said.
French karaoke
Indeed, the festival has come up with some modern and fun ways to celebrate French.
To find your nearest participating karaoke bar, check out francophonie.faguowenhua.com.
You can also take a tour of the language with a dictation game on WeChat (id:faguowenhua).
This was launched in late February and will be available throughout March. Inspired by Pivot Dictation (a French word game), the WeChat version introduces new French expressions, and players will have a chance to win a trip to Switzerland and France.
The 29 finalists will go to Beijing for a showdown in the Swiss Residence, which will be transformed into an elegant examination hall for the occasion.
The competition is under the patronage of Bernard Pivot, the noted French journalist, critic and television host, and the founder of Pivot Dictation.
A diverse array
The 2016 Mars en Folie (March madness) is the musical side of the festival and will present 30 concerts of quintessentially French music in 14 cities.
Shanghai will be able to enjoy this diverse array of indie pop, punk, jazz and rap on March 12.
The concert will feature indie pop and romantic and philosophical interludes from Nicolas Michaux with ballroom punk chanson from Fabian Tharin.
The eccentric French singer Matthieu Chedid, aka Mister-M- (below), will share the stage with rock singer Izia, who will be performing in China for the first time, at the MAO Livehouse on March 25.
The Francophonie Festival, an event promoting the French language, will be celebrated for the first time in China in March. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers
Ticket holders will be admitted free to the after-show session at the Bar Rouge, where the world-famous DJ Etienne de Crecy will wow the crowds with his euphoric electro music.Exhibitions and cinematic delights
As part of the festival, there will be a major retrospective of Alberto Giacometti, the famous Swiss sculptor, artist, draftsman and print-maker, at the Yuz Museum.
The show, organized by the Yuz Museum's founder Budi Tek and the Giacometti Foundation's director Catherine Grenier, brings together 240 original works - bronzes, drawings, paintings, engravings and photographs - that span the artist's early creations, cubist and surrealist periods, through to the slim-line figures of the 1960s.
Adrien Gardere, a designer and museographer from the Louvre, has created an original presentation for the occasion by setting up a dozen spaces, each with a different theme - for example the artist's relationship to Paris, or his obsession with the human head.
As part of the retrospective, Loic Corbery, regarded as one of the most talented French actors of his generation, will perform Alberto Giacometti's Workshop alongside Chinese actor Zhou Yemang.
Together, they will perform extracts from the book, The Studio of Alberto Giacometti by the famed novelist Jean Genet.
Also opening in Shanghai on March 18 will be Gueules de Vignerons, an exhibition of the pictures of vineyards and winemakers by the France-based author-photographer Jean-Yves Bardin.
The exhibition reveals the stories behind the enigmatic shapes of vines and, grapes and the people who tend them.
The French-speaking world will showcase its cinematic diversity in a selection of 22 films from March 11 to 29. This film festival includes feature films from France, Mauritania, Madagascar and Quebec, a comedy from Luxembourg, animation from Uruguay, and a documentary from Austria.
Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, known for his poignant films about exile and the director of Timbuktu will come to Shanghai to present the film.
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