23 July 2009

La Mare au Diable

In front of the "Devil (or Devil's) Pool", a mystic place described in one of George Sand's novels with the same name, in French, as above: La Mare au Diable.
In the novel the main characters walk around this pool or puddle in circles, again and again not finding their way home or their way from this particular spot. A sort of haunted place!
La Mare au Diable - The Devil Pool - wasn't as frightening as one could imagine. Maybe it's more frightening during the night?

audio version (in French).

ebook

Masterclass Chopin 2009

In La Châtre you can find a multitude of cultural events, like e.g. these master classes with piano music by Frédéric Chopin.

The pianist Yves Henry, one of the foremost (some would even say the foremost) interpreters of the piano music by Chopin is the Master of these master classes.

The piano keyboard was displayed on a screen whereby we could follow the young musicians when performing different pieces by Chopin.

Henry was in charge also of the film camera registrating the keyboard and the notation, enabling us to see the differences between how the pianists played and how Henry wanted them to play.

They used two grand pianos (Pleyel), one modern and one from the 19th Century, the latter probably the one Chopin used to play at when visiting George Sand.

Henry also showed the audience the original notations by Chopin and how they actually differed a lot from the modern notations, concerning both tempi and dynamics.

Two very interesting and enlightening evenings (22-23/7) with exquisite music!


We strongly recommend the book below (unfortunately only in French as far as I know), telling the story about Chopin and his relationship with the author George Sand at her maison in Nohant, a book containing four CD:s with Yves Henry playing Chopin!

16 July 2009

A day in Bourges


We spent the day in Bourges in order to explore the capital city of Berry.

Gunnar found the town very charming - and it is.

We bought some clothes and visited L'Hôtel Lallemant 
(no need to tell we studied some symbols very carefully).
It was a really pleasant day!

12 July 2009

Paris Cinéma – tchi-tcha!


I (Aurore) volunteered at Paris Cinéma filmfestival during summer 2004.
I got so tired from the work then that I did not manage to watch one single film...

This year, I am glad we bought a pass for 25€/person. Thanks to these 'tickets', we could watch as many films as we wanted.

Our programme:

La Viaccia, Mauro Bolognini


Singularités d'une jeune fille blonde, Manoel De Oliveira


Singularités d'une jeune fille blonde -... par baryla

En attendant les Nuages, Yesim Ustaoglu


En attendant les nuages - Bande annonce Vost FR par _Caprice_

Vegas: Based on a true story, Amir Naderi


Automne, Özcan Alper

Sonbahar (Autumn 2008) Trailer from Evin on Vimeo.

L'Autre Rive, George Ovashvili


Masculin, Féminin, Jean-Luc Godard


Week End, Jean-Luc Godard


Le Départ, Jerzy Skolimowski


On est bien peu de choses, Reha Erdem


On est bien peu de chose... - Bande annonce Vost... par _Caprice_

The Storm, Kazim Öz


The Girlfriend Experience, Steven Soderbergh


Le Ruban Blanc, Michael Haneke


Destiny, Zeki Demirkubuz


Summer Book, Seyfi Teoman


Milk, Semih Kaplanoglu


Better than sex, Su Chao-Bin

Temptation Island, Joey Gosiengfiao


Uzak, Nuri Bilge Ceylan


The Small Town, Nuri Bilge Ceylan


London Nights, Alexis Dos Santos


Calimucho, Eugenie Jansen


[PC2009] Calimucho (extrait) par festivalpariscinema

Alice, Jan Svankmajer


L'Ours et le Magicien
, Maris Brinkmanis, Janis Cimermanis


La Traversée du Temps, Mamoru Hosoda






La Traversée du temps - Bande-annonce 1 - Français - La Libre.be
Makoto est une jeune lycéenne comme les autres, un peu garçon manqué, pas trop intéressée par l'école et absolument pas concernée par le temps qui passe !

Mercano le Martien, Juan Antin


Nuages de Mai, Nuri Bilge Ceylan


Les Trois Singes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan


On the Way to School, Özgür Dogan, Orhan Eskiköy


On the Way to School par xiloperisan

Kilink vs Superman, Yilmaz Atadeniz




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Between the 3rd and the 12th of July, we have been visting 30 screenings, and seen living legends like Claudia Cardinale, Manoel De Oliveira (below) and many more...

11 July 2009

Outdoors screenings at the Swedish Institute


Two nights in a row, we visited the garden belonging to the Swedish Institute in Paris.
We watched Låt den rätte komma in (Tomas Alfredsson) and Les Grandes Personnes (Anna Novion)
For the first time, we saw our names in the credit rolls of the French-Swedish co-production ('Les Grandes Personnes').

While waiting for the first screening, we read the information brochure.

In this 4-page-document about cinema edited by the Swedish Institute, names like Björn Runge – one of our favourite Swedish living directors -, Kristian Petri, Ruben Östlund or Johannes Stjärne-Nilsson & Ola Simonsson were absent.

It felt somewhat strange, to say the least. Especially when people like Simon Staho or Niels Arden Oplev (2 Danes) were included in this same document...