French Embassy
When:
June 2018
JUNE 2018
French Culture in June
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The Cultural Services of the French Embassy is pleased to announce a selection of French cultural events that will be presented in Washington, DC and its consular district this month.
FILM SERIES: FOREVER JEANNE MOREAU
June 12 | 7:00 p.m | 1957 - France - 92 min | Embassy of France - La Maison Française
By Louis Malle. Florence (Jeanne Moreau) is married to the wealthy arms dealer Simon Carala (Jean Wall), but is carrying on a torrid affair with one of her husband's employees, Julien (Maurice Ronet). Julien daringly climbs into Simon's office on a rope, kills him and leaves unnoticed. However, Julien accidentally leaves the rope at the crime scene and realizes he must retrieve it. On his way out, he becomes stuck in the building's elevator. But he soon finds that his bad luck is just beginning.
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June 26 | 7:00 p.m | 1962 – France – 102 min | Embassy of France - La Maison Française
By François Truffaut. In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules (Oskar Werner) strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre). Both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), but it's Jules who wins her hand. After the war, Jim visits Jules, Catherine and their daughter in their Austrian home and discovers not only that his feelings for Catherine are unchanged, but also that they are reciprocated.
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FILM, TV & NEW MEDIA
June 28 | 7:00 p.m | 2016 - France - 2 x 52 min | Embassy of France - La Maison Française
As France is excitedly preparing for the release of the fourth season of The Bureau (Le Bureau des Légendes), come discover or rediscover this critically acclaimed French spy series, with a special screening of the two first episodes of the first season. Often compared to hit espionage series Homeland and The Americans, The Bureau is based on real-life accounts by former French spies. It revolves around the double lives of undercover agents within the French secret service and its most secret department, known as the Bureau of Legends.
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June 20 | 8:00 p.m. | 2017 - France - 108 min | Avalon Theatre
By François Ozon. A woman, Chloé (Marine Vacth) seeks to shore up her resiliency and enters psychoanalysis. Her psychiatrist (Jérémie Renier) helps her overcome bouts with depression, and the two fall in love. Chloé soon comes to believe that he is keeping a secret, and she visits another psychiatrist. Spiraling emotional and sexual stakes will push all three of them to extremes, forcing Chloé to take action in order to solve a mystery and save herself.
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June 17 | 4:00 p.m. | National Gallery of Art - East Building Auditorium
A César-winning director, former head of the Annecy Animation Film Festival, and TV producer, Parisian Serge Bromberg is most of all a collector of rare and enchanting films. This special program, which Bromberg also accompanies on piano, includes many of his most recent discoveries. Among the stars of today’s show: Laurel and Hardy’s lost masterpiece, Georges Méliès’s Trip to the Moon in color, legendary opera singer Enrico Caruso, early animation, and much more.
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Until July 5 | AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917–1973) made 13 feature films between 1947 and 1972, most of them ranking among the best in post-war French cinema. A supreme master of style, Melville was a "filmmaker's filmmaker," as this comment from L'Express confirms: "Each time Jean-Pierre Melville releases a new film, all filmmakers, including those who hate him, book a seat to see 'how it's done.'"
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MUSIC
June 8 - 17, 2018 | Various Locations
The nation’s capital’s signature jazz event, DC JazzFest, will once again present its wide array of renowned and resident artists in settings across the community, in all four quadrants of the city, in over 22 neighborhoods and 40+ venues. This year's edition will feature a sizzling lineup of international artists, including some of the best French musicians (Frédéric Yonnet, AJOYO and Ancestral Memories).
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June 17 | 6:30 p.m. | Lincoln Theater
Yann Tiersen first came to prominence when his early albums were used to create the soundtrack for the film Amélie(Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) and his musical output has been diverse from the beginning. His ninth studio album, and his first solo piano album, is named EUSA, the Breton name for the island of Ushant. Located 30 kilometres off the west coast of Brittany in the Celtic Sea, the island is where Tiersen lives. EUSA is an album of sparse beauty, moving into minimalist contemporary sounds and showing Tiersen’s musical diversity.
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ART & DESIGN
June 21 | 9 a.m. | Embassy of France - La Maison Française
Pop-up exhibition and artist talk featuring Chloé Bensahel with opening remarks by Camille Ann Weber, contemporary textile art curator at the Textile Museum in Washington DC. From Berber carpets with embedded codes to the invention of the world wide “web,” textiles have long been at the heart of how different communities empower themselves. Chloé Bensahel builds on this legacy of care in her own work, every stitch, row, and gesture an ode to softness, as she speaks to the complex construction of cultural narrative. Drawing on the extensive archives of the Textile Museum of Washington DC, join us in hosting Bensahel and her work for a discussion on past and present iterations of textile interventions.
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Until June 30 | Artechouse
Blurring the lines between the real and virtual, Naked Eyes, the latest immersive exhibition at ARTECHOUSE by Paris-based artist studio Nonotak, is the ultimate celebration of light. Comprised of four unique installations, with each piece site specific, the exhibit is a completely immersive and other-worldly experience of sound and vision. Visitors are encouraged to focus on their emotional connection with the artwork, seeking unique viewpoints and in every sense of the word, experience the created dreamlike environments.
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June 9 - September 28 | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Step inside the private world of Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) and discover the exquisite works of art that crafted Napoléon’s image, as well as the Imperial Household that supported his audacious rise to power. More than 200 works of art—many of which have never before been exhibited in the United States—reveal the intricacies of the Emperor’s daily life and the range of works commissioned by and for him. This exhibition of international loans includes major masterpieces of painting, decorative arts, sculptures, engravings, and more—brought together from the Château de Fontainebleau, the Louvre, the Musée de l’Armée in Paris, and other world-class collections.
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June 26, 2018 - June 2019 | The National Museum of American History
View the American Revolution through a global lens in The American Revolution: A World War, which examines the 1781 victory at Yorktown and the Franco-American partnership that made it possible. This exhibition will captivate visitors with compelling objects, including two paintings created by Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe as copies of those presented to King Louis XVI. The exhibition features The Siege of Yorktown and The Surrender of Yorktown, both painted in 1786, and George Washington’s early 1780s portrait by Charles Willson Peale, united for the first time in a national museum since their display together in the 1700s.
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PERFORMING ARTS
June 1 - 10 | 8:00 p.m | Fairmount Park
More than 200,000 witnessed the “jaw-dropping sensation” during the 2011 PIFA, when aerial performers dangled hundreds of feet in the air above Broad Street and transfixed the crowd with an otherworldly spectacle. Transe Express, the celebrated French performance troop, returns with the world premiere of Cristal Palace, a 360-degree immersive event featuring a human chandelier as the centerpiece for the best dance party Philly has ever seen.
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June 14 | 7:30 p.m | French | Embassy of France - La Maison Française
DC Comédie, the French international School – Rochambeau - based theatre company, presents L’Atelier, a play about the deportation of the Jews during the World War II and daily life in post-war Paris. The play, directed by Anne Severac-Leblanc, takes place in the center of Paris, in the workroom of a confectionery owned by Jewish Eastern-European immigrants during the years 1945-1952, immediately following World War II. 
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MORE CULTURAL HIGHLIGHTS AT LA MAISON FRANÇAISE
June 23 | 6:00 p.m. | Embassy of France - La Maison Française
French-born Maestro Julien Benichou conducts Georges Bizet's masterpiece with Lisa Chavez performing Carmen along with Brandie Sutton as Micaela, Jonathan Tetelman as Don José, Kevin Short as Escamillo, and Nicole Butler as Frasquita. The 2018 Gala performance of one of the most beloved operas in the repertoire in the Grand Ballroom of La Maison Française, to benefit and organized by The Washington Opera Society.
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