Tournées French Film Festival at Elon concludes

On Sunday, March 5, Elon hosted students, faculty and staff from Elon and the surrounding community for a screening of “Parce que j’étais peintre (Because I was a painter)” for the closing of the Tournées French Film Festival which began Feb. 19.

​This year’s festival theme was “Résistance,” exploring both the refusal to accept circumstances and the resilience to overcome them. It was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic film about French Resistance fighters, “Army of Shadows,” which demonstrates so vividly the sacrifices people will make to defy oppressive regimes—a theme common to current news around the world regarding global terror, mass migration, and political turmoil.

François Masuka, Assistant Professors Ryan Johnson and Ariela Marcus-Sells, and Associate Professors Michael Carignan, Jeff Carpenter and Evan Gatti graciously introduced the films and led post-screening discussions about how the characters enacted “résistance.” Attendees, including Elon students, faculty, and staff as well as community members and faculty and students from local institutions, were invited to consider causes worth fighting for at all costs and reminded to be eternally hopeful in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Vive la résistance!

The Tournées Film Festival was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment. Additional sponsors included the Elon College of Arts and Sciences; the Residential Campus Initiative; the Inclusive Community Council; the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society; French Club; the Global Neighborhood Association; The Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life; Muslim Life at Elon; Jewish Studies; Peace and Conflict Studies; and the Departments of English, History and Geography, Philosophy, and World Languages and Cultures. Door prizes were generously provided by Irazù Coffee, The Oak House, Pandora’s Pies, The Root Trackside, Smitty’s Homemade Ice Cream, and Tangent Eat Bar. Professor Patti Burns, lecturer of French in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, organized the Festival. French professors Adamson, Burns, Choplin, and Glasco look forward to more interdisciplinary collaborations in next spring’s Festival, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the revolutionary events of May 1968 in France. Photo©CinemaGuild