The engagement kicks off on March 6 with both programs in the 616-seat Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre.

On all other dates, the programs will take place in the 83-seat Spielberg Theatre.

Location : Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
Info : www.AmericanCinematheque.com ; Tickets available through www.fandango.com

ON DVD
LA VIE EN ROSE

Winner of 2 Academy Awards®, including Best Actress.

Own the DVD today to see Marion Cotillard’s Academy Award®-winning performance in La Vie En Rose ! The DVD also includes an exclusive behind-the-scenes bonus feature, highlighting the Academy Award-winning make-up that transformed Marion Cotillard into the character of legendary French singer, Edith Piaf.

ART

March 1 - June 1, 2008
Beyond the iconic : contemporary photographs of Paris

The City of Light comes to the City of Angels in photographs from the Musée Carnavalet, in Paris, whose collections represent the most comprehensive archive of Parisian history. The Library Foundation of Los Angeles is pleased to bring the works of art in this exhibition to the United States for the first time under special arrangement.

Curated by Los Angeles scholars and writers Guy Bennett and Béatrice Mousli, with Catherine Tambrun of the Musée Carnavalet, “Beyond the Iconic” features 140 photographs of often-unseen aspects of the French capital that create a deeper more enriched understanding of Paris.

Location : Public Library, 630 W. 5th St. -Los Angeles, CA 90071
Info :www.lapl.org/events/iconic/

March 22 - April 26, 2008
Anne-Laure Sacriste

Chung King Project is pleased to host French painter Anne Laure Sacriste for her solo debut in the United States.
In Sacriste’s paintings on wood, light seems to have been absorbed and damped down by the support, as cut-ups of some fantastic landscape surface out of the opacity of an immense black panel.

Anne Laure Sacriste graduated from the Beaux Arts in Paris, and studied under Henry Cueco. Past exhibition include a solo at Art-Concept, Paris in 2006. She is currently part of a group exhibition at the Musee d’Art Contemporain of Noisy-Le-Sec titled Night Visions.

Location : Chung King Project, 945 Chung King Rd. - Los Angeles, CA 90012
Info : www.chungkingproject.com

March 22, 2008 from 4 to 7 pm
Second Annual French Art

Celebrate the French week with the Alliance Française of Pasadena. Champagne and wine reception with the artists.

Location : Alliance Française de Pasadena, 34 E. Union St. - Pasadena, CA 91103
Info : www.afdepasadena.org

February 2 - April 26, 2008
Arid Zones/Zones Arides

Long fascinated with the Sonoran Desert, many European artists and musicians have been inspired by time spent here as both visitors and residents. Over the last five years, each of the artists included in Arid Zones/Zones Arides has spent time in Tucson and its surrounding desert, creating sculptures, drawings, photographs, videos, and site specific installation pieces in direct response to the environment, reflecting on the myth and mystery of our landscape, and participating in a creative exchange which bridges languages, cultures, and identities. Initially presented in a major exhibition in Paris and Nantes, France, last year, Arid Zones/Zones Arides comes to life in another iteration at MOCA on The Plaza in Tucson and completes a portion of the larger cross-cultural exchange originally conceived of by Mosset in his inception of this unique artmaking process. The exhibition is supported by Etant Donnés/ French-American Cultural Exchange.

Location : MOCA Tuscon, 149 N Stone Ave. - Tucson, AZ 85701
Info : www.moca-tucson.org

February 12 - May 4, 2008
Consuming Passion : Fragonard’s Allegories of Love

This small, focused exhibition assembles a group of paintings, drawings, and prints-for the first time-to examine the late allegories of love by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806). This project comes out of research based on the Getty Museum’s painting, "The Fountain of Love", which was acquired in 1999. The exhibition concentrates on the extraordinary, and still little-known, later works of Fragonard, in which he embarked on a series of dramatic reflections on the subject of romantic love, adopting a newly-restrained palette and allegorical vocabulary, while retaining his famously fluid and effortless handling.

Location : West Pavilion, Plaza Level, Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Dr. - Los Angeles, CA 90049
Info : www.getty.edu

February 12 - March 29, 2008
Vicky Colombet : Vantage Points

French-born, New York-based artist has explored the interaction of nature and abstraction for over two decades. Rather than reproducing landscape views, Colombet evokes the textures and processes of change : wind, snow and water carving out mountain crevasses over time. The underlying compositional grid, a frequent starting point in her paintings, seems to be obliterated by erosional forces. Despite these references to nature, Colombet’s works are in dialogue with the minimal paintings of Agnes Martin and Brice Marden. Her more monochromatic pieces operate as pure abstractions, while others appear almost photographic recalling Richter’s intersection of painting and photography.

Opening on February 16 from 5 to 7 pm.

Location : Evo Gallery, 554 Guadalupe, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Info : www.evogallery.org

February 23 - May 25, 2008
Inspiring Impressionism

The Impressionists embodied all of the above. But even these innovative “painters of modern life” were influenced by the art of the past.

Explore the relationship between the Impressionists and the Old Masters that inspired them in this beautiful and thought-provoking exhibition, featuring about 100 paintings and drawings from nearly 70 museums and private collections.

Location : Denver Art Museum, 100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy - Denver, CO 80204
Info : www.denverartmuseum.org

January 20, 2008 - May 4, 2008
Masterpiece Replayed : Monet, Matisse and More

This extraordinary exhibition explores how and why 19th century French painters repeated themselves in their paintings - often painting the same scene over and over - for deliberate and defined purposes. In fact, much of the history of European painting is of artists meaningfully repeating themselves, returning to a theme, or even duplicating their own designs. This exhibition examines - in approximately 60 of the most famous paintings, watercolors, sculptures and etchings by such artists as David, Delacroix, Gérôme, Corot, Millet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Matisse and others - how French painters in the 19th and early 20th centuries used repetition and what repetition came to mean for them as individual artists. The 13 case-studies in the exhibition provide an unprecedented opportunity to compare different versions of masterpieces and to instigate a conversation about originality and mastery. This exhibition will be on view at only two locations in the country, Phoenix Art Museum and Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which organized the exhibition.

Location : Phoenix Art Museum, Katz Wing, Main Level 1625 N. Central Ave. - Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
Info : www.phxart.org

Until May 2008
Nisa Chevenement

Egyptian born artist Nisa Chevenement studied sculpture at l’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Cairo and psychology in France at the University of Paris La Sorbonne. Though she found her new home in France, her journey and work have been infused by both Western and Eastern cultural influences. Nisa’s sculpture evokes strong energy and emotion. Her latest works show a conflicting tension and dramatic intensity illustrating scenes inspired by Les portes de l’Enfer by Rodin.

Location : Jean de Merry Showroom, 927 N. La Cienega Blvd. - West Hollywood, CA 90069
Info : www.nisa-art.net ; www.jeandemery.com

September 18, 2007 to December 27, 2009
"Please Be Seated : A Video Installation by Nicole Cohen

Internationally recognized video artist Nicole Cohen (American, b. 1970) explores the intersection of historical interiors, the social behaviors they conditioned, contemporary popular culture, and fantasy. Her project for the Getty Museum focuses on the Museum’s collection of French seating furniture and its original and museological contexts. Viewers are invited to engage in a participatory experience, forming personal, imaginative narratives through video projections that render the chairs physically and psychologically accessible.

Location : The J. Paul Getty Museum, South Pavillon, 1200 Getty Center Dr. - Los Angeles, CA 90049
Info : (310) 440-7300 ; www.getty.edu

July 27, 2007 - April 27, 2008
Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection

This exhibition presents 37 treasured masterpieces from the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, that chart modern artists’ experimental interpretations of the academic themes of portraiture, landscape, still life, and genre. The juxtaposition of works on the same theme by artists associated with Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism invites consideration of the evolution of style during this dynamic period in art history as well as the timelessness of these subjects.

Location : Guggenheim Heritage Museum at the Venitian, 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard S. - Las Vegas, NV 89109
Info : www.guggenheimlasvegas.org

Etant donnés : The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art

The Fund for Contemporary Art is dedicated to nurturing and supporting outstanding programming of contemporary artists from France and the United States. It facilitates the discovery of emerging talent and firmly believes in the need to sustain interest in established artists whose work inspires younger generations. Etant Donnés is instrumental in creating a network of curators from both countries who work together and exchange ideas.

Info : www.facecouncil.org

The Project Grant program offers financial support in the form of grants to American nonprofit institutions organizing exhibitions, installations, artist residencies, publications, or other projects by living French artists or to French nonprofit institutions presenting the same types of projects involving American artists. Qualifying exhibitions may be in the fields of painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture and design, as well as video art or any form of artistic endeavor applying new technologies.

Application deadline : March 31, 2008

The Curatorial Research Grant program supports the professional development of American curators by offering them extended stays of up to three months in France for research projects in the field of contemporary art.

Application deadline : March 31, 2008

Should you apply to one of these programs, please contact the French Cultural Services in Los Angeles.

MUSIC - OPERA - CONCERT

March 6 & 8, 2008 @ 8 pm and March 9 @ 2 pm
Stéphane Denève and the Los Angeles Philharmonic*

Stéphane Denève, now recognized internationally as an exciting young conductor of the highest caliber will conduct Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Poulenc’s Double Piano Concerto, Roussel’s Symphony No.3 and Ravel’s La Valse.

*Conductor Stéphane Denèze has cancelled his appearance this week. He will be replaced by French Assistant Conductor Lionel Bringuier will lead these concerts in his subscription debut. Program and soloists remain the same.

Location : Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave. - Los Angeles, CA 90012
Info : www.laphil.com

March 8, 2008 @ 8 pm
Angélique Kidjo

Born in Ouidah, Benin, Angélique Kidjo is one of the most electrifying performers in world music today, Angelique Kidjo crosses musical boundaries unifying African and Brazilian rhythms with funky global salsas, rumbas, dance floor lullabies and brassy tribal rituals.

Location : University of Arizona - Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd. - Tucson, AZ 85710
Info : www.myspace.com/angeliquekidjo ; www.arizona.edu

March 11, 2008 @ 8 pm
Thieves Like Us

Thieves Like Us is a musical vehicle an elegant starship, pointed straight to the heart of the listener. They align themselves musically with Europe, and consider Paris their home (although none of them are French).

Location : Cinespace, 6356 Hollywood Blvd. - Hollywood, CA 90028
Info : www.myspace.com/thieveslikeusplaymusic ; www.clubzone.com

March 12, 2008 @ 8 pm
Yael Naim

A singer/songwriter born to Jewish and Tunisian parents, Yael Naïm first hit the pop-music scene in 2001, but her debut was not what she had hoped for, and it wasn’t until 2007 that her follow-up appeared. Born in Paris in 1978, Yael Naim first got a taste for pop music when she discovered the Beatles. Adding Aretha Franklin and Joni Mitchell to her list of influences, Yael Naïm soon found herself playing shows with Winton Marsalis’ backing musicians in Tel Aviv (where she had moved at the age of four). Released in October of 2007, the album contained songs in French, English, and Hebrew, and included a surprising cover in Britney Spears’ "Toxic." Critical acclaim and chart success followed and in 2008, Naim’s song "New Soul" was used in a commercial for Apple’s new MacBook Air computer.

Location : Hotel Café, 1623 ½ N. Cahuenga Blvd. - Los Angeles, CA 90028
Info : www.myspace.com/yaelnaim ; www.hotelcafe.com

March 23, 2008 @ 7 pm
Pierre Bensusan

Pierre Bensusan is a French-Algerian guitarist. His family came from Spain, Spanish Morocco and French Algeria. The genre of his acoustic guitar music is often characterized as Celtic, Folk, World music, New Age, or Chamber jazz.

He has a reputation as something of an innovator in the field of solo acoustic guitar, including his use of the Dadgad tuning system, and his experimentation with electronics such as delays, distortions and volume pedals, which have been largely abandoned on recent tours.

Location : McCabes, 3101 Pico Blvd. - Santa Monica, CA 90401
Info : www.pierrebensusan.com ; www.mccabes.com

March 31, 2008 at 8 pm
Justice & Fancy in concert

Justice is a French electro house duo consisting of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay. They are the most successful group on Ed Banger Records and are managed by the label’s head, Pedro Winter. Their main trademark is a large light-up cross that shines throughout their shows. Justice is known for incorporating a strong rock influence into their music and image.

Fancy is such a band, coming from Montreuil located in the suburbs of Paris. Whether it’s a warehouse in the gritty but trendy suburbs or a municipal theatre, people rush to the front of the stage. Preening and posing like the rock god he is, Jessie Chaton bounds onto the drum riser raising his arms in exhortation. Spinning on one foot, Mom urgently charges back and forth like a whirlwind of indeterminate sex. Stock still, Ramon balefully glares at the crowd while giving Fancy their funk. Antoine Goussard is an enigma - keeping the John Bonham beat, he just is.

Location : The Mayan, 1038 South Hill St. - Los Angeles, CA 90015
Info : www.myspace.com/welovefancy ; www.myspace.com/etjusticepourtous ; www.clubmayan.com

The French Music Export Office on MySpace : a platform of French produced artists !

The French Music Export Office now has a page on My Space ! Check out all its “friends” and listen to the original sounds made in France ! With its growing network of “friends”, this page will be the meeting place for the many French produced artists using My Space to promote their music around the world. Myspace.com/frenchmusicexport will be the platform to discover the original sounds made in France (click on our friends’page and get a quick listening of their latest productions) ! With a link to the French Music Export Office’s website where you can find much more oodies : bios in English, dates of the French artists’ gigs around the world, professional contact information for each artist, etc., Myspace.com/frenchmusicexport goes hand in hand with our official website www.french-music.org Support our artists abroad, post a comment on our page, enjoy the diversity of the music produced in France ! www.myspace.com/frenchmusicexport

The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music

The French-American Fund for Contemporary Music supports contemporary music projects - commissions, residencies, performances, tours, and master classes - that foster cultural exchange between France and the United States. The Fund awards grants to nonprofit institutions celebrating the work of living composers in both countries.
Info : www.facecouncil.org

French American Jazz Exchange Program

The French-American Jazz Exchange was created by Chamber Music America (CMA), the French Embassy and FACE to foster collaborative projects that unite French and American jazz artists. The program supports initiatives in both countries.
Info : www.facecouncil.org

THEATER - DANCE - BALLET

March 29, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
Le Vent du Nord

Since its founding in 2002, Le Vent du Nord has exploded onto the folk music scene and has quickly become one of the most recognizable and esteemed bands of the Québec traditional music world. Offering an enlivening concert experience, they have crowds dancing to the sound of fiddle and hurdy-gurdy, singing original songs taken from the traditional repertoire, as well as their own compositions, all in their native French.

Le Vent du Nord consists of four singers/ multi-instrumentalists : Nicolas Boulerice (acoustic/electric hurdy-gurdy, piano, accordion-piano), Simon Beaudry (guitar), Olivier Demers (violin, guitar, foot tapping) and Réjean Brunet (acoustic bass, diatonic accordion, piano).

Location : Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles, Théâtre Raymond Kabbaz, 10361 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Info : (310) 286-0553 or www.theatreraymondkabbaz.com

Etant Donnés : The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts
The Fund for the Performing Arts is dedicated to encouraging French-American cooperation in theater in the United States and in France.
Info : www.facecouncil.org

FUSED : French-US Exchange in Dance
In 2004, NEFA (New England Foundation for the Arts) and NDP (National Dance Project) entered into a four-year partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and FACE to create the French-U.S. Exchange in Dance (FUSED). Over the past year, U.S. presenters have been planning and building relationships with French artists while French presenters have been making new connections with U.S. artists. These activities will lead to future opportunities for dance artists in both countries.

Info : www.nefa.org

BOOKS

“The Black Coats : The Parisian Jungle” by Paul Féval

This book was one of the most successful of all of Paul Féval’s novels. It has remained in print throughout the 20th century. Its durance is due to the fact that it is a significant landmark in the history of crime fiction, but also one of the most intense and effective melodramas written by a significant pioneer of pulp fiction designed to suit the demands of daily serialization-a tradition carried forward today by TV soap operas.

Les Habits Noirs was originally serialized from March 12 to July 19, 1863. It was eventually to become the foundation-stone of a long series of crime novels describing the exploits of the eponymous criminal organization.
Paul Féval is also the author of Le Bossu [The Hunchback](1857), the definitive text of the swashbuckling cape-et-épée subgenre of historical novels.

Info : Edited by Black Coat Press, 2008 ; ISBN-13 : 978-1-934543-03-0

“Héroïnes françaises, 1940-1945” by Monique Saigal

In her research, French Professor Monique Saigal interviews women of the French Resistance and unveils her own past, coming to terms with her Jewish roots. “The book inspired me a lot ; I used the bibliography from the book as a reference,” Saigal said. “I had also contacted publishers-they gave me addresses to the women who have written books (about their experiences). My mother knew a woman and she had contacts. I also saw a rabbi and went to the national library in France.” Saigal also works for the Foundation of Resistance where she did research.

Info : Edited by Rocher Editions, 2008 ; ISBN : 978-2-268-06438-3

GRANTS

French Voices
The French version of World Voices ! To make contemporary French voices available to American readers through translation - books to be read and debated by American readers eager to explore new forms and ideas.

What’s the objective of this program ?
To ensure that 30 contemporary French books are translated in the United States by the end of 2008. In 2006, one in three books that received grants had no American editor ; they found one thanks to the French Voices grant and through our efforts.

Who can you participate ?
If you are a literary agent, editor, or translator, and you already have a translated sample of a French book - but you do not necessarily have a contract with an American publisher - fill in the application form and send it back to us.

What’s to be gained by participating ?
To help offset the financial risks associated with distributing translated texts in the American marketplace, the publisher of each selected project will receive $6,000. If a project without an American publisher is selected, we will do our best to support it by identifying and making overtures to a suitable partner.

Who chooses the books ?
A committee of French and American professionals meets several times a year to read and discuss the works submitted for consideration. The committee is headed by a representative from the Book Office of the French Embassy’s Cultural Services

Selection criteria :
  It must be a French book published no earlier than 2000
  The quality of the French book
  The quality of the translation
  Innovative content and literary forms
  Possible reception in the American bookmarket (i.e., would an American reader buy this book in translation)

Application for support may be submitted by publishers, agents, or translators, until March 30, 2008, after which the Committee will make its selection of the projects to be supported in 2008. Please note that once grants are awarded, projects must have both contracts (French publisher/American publisher and American publisher/Translator) signed by October, 12th 2008 in order to receive payment.

Info : www.frenchbooknews.com/grantsamericanpublishers.php

The Hemingway Grant Program

Financial assistance for American publishers is available through the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. It assists projects, which are not already supported by the Centre National du Livre (CNL), and allows publishers to be supported directly through funds available in the US at the Book Office of the French Embassy. The grant awarded for each work varies from $1,000 to $6,000.
The application should be addressed to the literary attaché at the Book Office of the Cultural Services either by mid-March of each year for the first session, or by mid-September, for the second session. It supports books that have not yet been published. Please include the following documents in order to constitute a complete application.

Info : www.frenchbooknews.com/grantsamericanpublishers.php

For more information on French books and translations, visit : www.frenchbooknews.com and www.frenchculture.org/books/index.html & http://cifdi.francophonie.org/Repert/LittFrancoph.cfm

LECTURE - READINGS

March 4, 2008 @ 3:30pm
“Les romans-feuilletons et leurs lectrices à l’époque” by Anne-Marie Thiesse

Lecture in French with the USC Francophone Resource Center.

Location : Taper Hall 170, USC Campus - Los Angeles, CA 90089
Info : frc@usc.edu

March 6, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
“The Musée du Quai Branly : A postcolonial museum ? The Politics of the Art of Postcoloniality” by Herman Lebovics

Location : Kerchkoff 131, UCLA Campus - Los Angeles, CA 90024
Info : www.ucla.edu

March 8, 2008 @ 4 pm
“French : the other global language” by Jean-Benoît Nadeau

Commentators across the planet seem convinced the French language is on the decline. Au contraire, say the authors of The Story of French : more people speak and are learning French today than ever in the history of the language. In spite of the influence of English, and partly because of it, French remains an important language of diplomacy, trade, industry, science, artistic creation and intellectual exchange. Even in the United States, where Spanish is now the number one second-language choice, the number of people learning French has remained constant.

Location : Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla, CA 92172-1764
Info : www.afsandiego.org

March 10, 2008 @ 6 pm
Bernard Magnier : "Écrire en français, venir d’ailleurs"

Talk in French by Bernard Magnier, presented by Alliance Française de Tucson, part of US tour organized by the Délégation Générale de l’Alliance Française & Service du Livre de l’Ambassade de France aux Etats-Unis.