Summer Cinema

Literary games in an idyllic resort, romance, infidelity, questions of morality and heroes who have a hard time keeping their word. Éric Rohmer’s summer classic is akin to a breezy summer meal with good French wine. — Shortly before his wedding, Jerome spends his summer vacation at lake Annecy, in order to sell his family villa. While there, he reunites with an old friend who is a writer and is staying at a neighboring house along with the owner’s strong-willed daughter. Jerome’s interactions with the young girl and the effect she has on him, provide the writer with the idea for her next book. While Jerome’s interests start to wane, the arrival of a new girl, Claire, grabs his attention. — Best Film | San Sebastián International Film Festival | 1971 Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film | Golden Globes | 1972

Shot on 16mm with no script and improvised dialogue, this Venice Golden Lion winner by Rohmer (“My Night at Maud’s”) spends a whole summer with a woman who has no plans at all. It’s as rare as what it makes you wait for: a green flash on the horizon in the very last second of sunset. — When a friend cancels the trip they had planned together in early August and Paris empties around her, Delphine is left with no plans and starts drifting from one beach to the next, unable to bear being alone and just as unable to talk to anyone. Then she hears about the green ray, the last flash of the setting sun, which Jules Verne wrote would leave you knowing exactly what you feel. From then on, Delphine keeps her eyes on the horizon. — Golden Lion | Venice Film Festival | 1986 FIPRESCI Prize | Venice Film Festival | 1986 Pasinetti Award for Best Actress (Marie Rivière) | Venice Film Festival | 1986 Golden Ciak Award | Venice Film Festival | 1986

What business does a boring middle-aged man have in Ibiza? A week full of parties, misunderstandings, squabbles and laughter in a place that would be heaven for most but alas, not for Christian Clavier… — Divorcees Philippe and Carole meet and fall madly in love. In order to win over his partner’s two young children, Philippe is ready to do anything. So, he strikes a deal with her older son: if he does well in his exams, he will be the one to choose the family’s vacation destination. Which, of course, will be none other than Ibiza. For quiet and sensible Philippe, this will only be the beginning for a series of surprises and hilarious mishaps in the island of endless parties.

Jep Gambardella turns sixty-five on a terrace overlooking the Colosseum, where the wild partying keeps running into an existential void. Sorrentino’s most Felliniesque tribute to Rome won him the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and it’s all painful revelry and, well, great beauty. — In summertime Rome, Jep Gambardella is sixty-five and still the most wanted guest at every dinner and party in town, and the best of them are the ones he throws himself on his terrace overlooking the Colosseum. Back when he was a young journalist, he wrote one novel, which won a prize and earned him a name as an artist. He hasn’t written a word since. — Oscar Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2014

Catherine Deneuve, her sister Françoise Dorléac and a dubbed Gene Kelly star in a dazzlingly colourful musical romance with a murder lurking in the background. Before he shot a single frame, Jacques Demy (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) had thousands of shutters across Rochefort repainted. — In Rochefort, on the Atlantic coast, twin sisters teach dance and music and dream of finding romance and love in Paris. Then the summer fair rolls into town, bringing caravans, sailors and a troupe of travelling performers with it. What neither of them knows is that the answer to their dreams is only a few streets away. — Nominated for Best Music Score | Oscars | 1969

Even at their closest, they’re still a millimetre apart. Wong Kar-Wai (“In the Mood for Love”) wrote each scene in the morning and shot it that night, all in two weeks, and his cult film became the first release from Tarantino’s label. A cop, a wig, and “California Dreamin’” playing again next door. — Every day Cop 223 buys a tin of pineapple with a 1 May expiry date, because that’s the day he has promised himself he’ll stop pining. He can’t take his eyes off a woman in a blonde wig, never guessing that she deals drugs. Cop 663 has just been dumped as well, and his ex-girlfriend leaves the keys with the snack bar next door. — Official Selection | Locarno International Film Festival | 1994 Best Picture | Hong Kong Film Awards | 1995 Best Director | Hong Kong Film Awards | 1995 Best Actor (Tony Leung) | Hong Kong Film Awards | 1995 Best Actress (Faye Wong) | Stockholm Film Festival | 1994

The greatest love stories have yet to be told. An elderly woman embarks on a long journey and thus unleashes a grand, tender, peculiar, unique second part in a film for which just one time is not enough. — A woman spends her retirement years taking care of the people around her. Most of all, she's troubled by her lonely neighbor, an eccentric 80-year-old who believes her maid is using voodoo on her. The old woman wants to meet a man from her past, so the retiree and the maid join forces to help her find him. The man has a story to tell. A story that unfolded 50 years ago, before the Portuguese colonial war, and begins as follows: "He had a farm in Africa, at the base of mount Tabu..." — Alfred Bauer Award | Berlin International Film Festival | 2012 FIPRESCI Prize | Berlin International Film Festival | 2012 Audience Award | Las Palmas Film Festival | 2012

Fatih Akin pays tribute to teenage nerve with this tale of two boys who steal a car and set off on a mad trip across Germany, with no map and nowhere to be. It’s a moving story of a friendship that saves a life, and of a summer that turns out to be the best ever precisely because nobody planned it. — A fourteen-year-old boy is spending the summer alone in the family villa, since his mother is in rehab and his father is away on a supposed business trip with his secretary. When another boy drifts into his life, they’re soon friends, and before long they’ve stolen a car and taken off. Where they’re going hardly matters, as long as it’s away from Berlin.

Under Antiparos’ burning sun, a lonely middle-aged doctor gets together with a group of wild youngsters and spends the most hedonistic summer of his life. But if he gets any closer, they will all burn. Makis Papadimitriou and Elli Tringou in the film of 6 Iris awards of the Hellenic Film Academy. — Kostis is a 42-year-old doctor that finds himself in a tiny island, that is a total bore by winter and a sex crazed cosmopolitan hotspot during summertime. Αll young Anna has to do is burst into Kostis’ clinic with her group of hard partying friends and the good doctor falls hard for her. Kostis will go out of his way to conquer her and impress them, but the more they tease him, the furthest he draws his lines. And too far might be closer than he thought. — Best Actor (Makis Papadimitriou) | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2017 Best Supporting Actress (Elli Tringou) | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2017 Best Screenplay | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2017 Best Director | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2017