Festival La Rochelle Cinéma - FEMA

Since 1973, the Festival La Rochelle Cinéma (Fema) has been a major cinema festival at the start of summer. Today, Fema remains non-competitive, with a large and loyal audience, and films past and present from all over the world. It's a meeting place for filmmakers, prestigious actors and actresses, professionals, journalists and students from France and all over the world.

Fema presents some 200 films from the silent era to today's cinema, with retrospectives devoted to filmmakers who have marked the history of the 7th art and tributes to contemporary directors, actresses and actors.

2024 will be the year of Marcel Pagnol in cinema, and Fema is delighted to be offering a major retrospective of this key figure in French cinema.
While he left his mark on twentieth-century literature and theater, Marcel Pagnol also mastered the grammar of cinema from the arrival of talking pictures. A craftsman of the 7th art, working with his troupe of actors (Raimu, Fernandel, Orane Demazis, Josette Day, etc.) and the same team of collaborators, he shot his films in the natural settings of Provence with non-professional actors who influenced the greatest Italian filmmakers. Vittorio De Sica considers Jofroi, released in 1933, to be the first neorealist film. As for Roberto Rossellini, he asserts that he would never have shot Rome, Open City if he hadn't seen The Well Digger's Daughter. Finally, Jean-Luc Godard, for whom Angèle remains one of his three favorite films, said: "Pagnol is a guy who brought a lot to cinema, neo-realism and cinéma vérité in the long term came out of Pagnol. (...) What he brought to cinema was right. Today, Pagnol's films, like Guitry's, hold up because they are simple.

After the retrospective devoted to Sacha Guitry in 2023, Fema continues its rediscovery of popular French cinema from the 1930s-1940s.
Marcel Pagnol's cinema is full of humanity, modesty and tenderness. While we have long remembered the comedic side of his films, we are now discovering the melodramatic side. A rich, modern work, about the family, the dignity of peasants and the pride of manual labor, respect and solidarity, also touching on ecology with the motif of returning to the land and maintaining a balance between man and his natural environment.

Often broadcast on the small screen, Marcel Pagnol's masterpieces will be discovered by a new generation on the big screen, in beautiful versions restored by Hiventy, thanks to Nicolas Pagnol and Compagnie Méditerranéenne de Films, with the support of the CNC.
At Fema, 13 films will be programmed, from Marius to Manon des sources, including the little-known Merlusse. The retrospective will be accompanied by a "Pagnol Trail" led by specialists, critics and film personalities.

Full program: https://festival-larochelle.org/