Author: THE HOBBLEDEHOY

Michael Stevenson, aka Dai Bando, Johnny Foreigner, Monsieur Pas De Merde, is a blogger of French and British culture. His blogs "Pas De Merde" and "The Hobbledehoy" have been called "marvelous" by some, and "meh" by others.

Dardenne Brothers Give Emotional Speech at Lumière Festival in France

Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne spoke while accepting a lifetime achievement award in Lyon, just as France rolls out a nightly curfew.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne gave a rousing speech at the Lumière Festival in Lyon on Friday before accepting the event’s lifetime achievement award. They were welcomed to the stage by Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux (who also runs the Lyon event) and actress Emilie Dequenne, the star of the pair’s 1999 film “Rosetta.” The filmmaking brothers, whose last film was the 2019 Cannes selection “Young Ahmed,” spoke candidly about coronavirus and inequality at a masterclass earlier as part of the festival.

“Few things have changed in the 20 years since we made ‘Rosetta’ [the brothers’ first of two Cannes Palme d’Ors]. The coronavirus is not responsible for everything, and there are still so many inequalities in the world. They are right to fight,” Luc Dardenne said. Along with “Rosetta,” about a young woman struggling to hold down a job in a broken world, the brothers also earned Cannes’ top prize in 2005 with “L’enfant.”

“Being excluded from the world of work, of production, of consumption, of the human community, creates a feeling of humiliation, of worthlessness, of not existing. That’s what ‘Rosetta’ was about and it’s still true today — that solitude, it’s a question of human dignity,” Luc Dardenne said.

In stressing that the concerns of “Rosetta” remain relevant today, Luc also said, “There’s a responsibility that comes with being a filmmaker. Of course we like it when people like our film, but it’s even better they can become Rosetta, share her distress, become her. If a film can make someone who is locked up inside their own pre-conceived notions become someone else, and if this feeling stays with them, that’s what we want to achieve.”

Luc Dardenne also went on to explain how they formally achieved the societal intentions of the film which, like the majority of their body of work, employs a neorealist style to paint a picture of the working class in France. “In many of our films, there’s this notion of belonging. Rosetta has no place in society, she doesn’t know where she belongs. So when directing, we try and find a place for her. We put the camera in ‘the wrong place’” he said. “So that the character isn’t obvious to the viewer. If you feel you’re losing the character, you’re more interested.”

 

Source: Dardenne Brothers Give Emotional Speech at Lumière Festival in France | IndieWire

France teacher had received ‘days of threats’ before his brutal killing

The teacher who was beheaded in a street in France had received threats after showing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his pupils, French media report.

Nine people have been arrested, including the parents of a child at the school where the teacher was working, judicial sources are quoted as saying.

The attacker was shot dead by police near the scene of Friday’s killing.

Police say the attacker was an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin.

The killing took place while a trial is under way in Paris over a 2015 Islamist assault on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which was targeted for publishing the cartoons.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the attack bore all the hallmarks of an “Islamist terrorist attack” and the teacher had been murdered because he “taught freedom of expression”.

Speaking at the scene hours after the incident, he stressed national unity. “They will not prevail, they will not divide us,” he said.

What do we know?

The attack occurred at about 17:00 (15:00 GMT) near a middle school in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, some 30km (20 miles) north-west of central Paris.

A man wielding a large knife attacked the teacher in the street, cutting off his head. Witnesses are said to have heard the attacker shout “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is Greatest”.

The attacker then ran off, but local police were quickly at the scene, having been alerted by the public.

Continue reading “France teacher had received ‘days of threats’ before his brutal killing” →

Why French Winemakers Are Welcoming Bats to Their Vineyards

Bats in the vineyardThe winged creatures may help the wine industry salvage a terrible year

It’s not such a batty idea: Bordeaux wine producers are building bat-friendly habitats on their vineyards to help eradicate the issue of grapevine moth and grape berry moth infestation.

And in doing so, they’re hoping to salvage a beleaguered French wine industry that’s suffering not only from pests but high tariffs, climate change and the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, all of which is decimating sales of high-end wine bottles.

As Forbes reports, wine producers in France are creating strips of grass between the vines and building bat boxes; the hope is that the insect-eating mammals will eradicate the moths that cause botrytis, a gray mold that’s seriously hurt the industry before, particularly Champagne.

A Bordeaux-based scientist has been catching bats in nets and testing for the moths in their digestive systems; unfortunately, even their presence can’t prove if the yields will increase, as there are too many factors (such as climate) that change every year.

Source: Why French Winemakers Are Welcoming Bats to Their Vineyards – InsideHook