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France-Florida Research Institute

2007

September 10, 2007

10:00 am – 12:30 pm; 2:00 – 4:30 pm, 5:30 – 7:00 pm
Dauer Hall, Room 215: Reception and Film Screening
Europa Europa: Europe in Philosophy, History, Literature, Music and Film, A conference to discuss Europe, and its “alterities.” Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies and the Center for European Studies.

September 19

1:55 – 2:45 pm, Dauer Hall, Room 215
Long Mantles and Short Coats: Charlemagne and Roland in the Window at Chartres, a slide lecture on the Charlemagne window at the cathedral of Chartres in France presented by Dr. Mary Jane Schenck, University of Tampa.

Studies of the Charlemagne window at Chartres have accepted that the iconography is based on three Latin texts that retell important episodes in the Emperor’s life.  Although The Song of Roland is not considered a textual source, Roland has been identified in so many panels in the window that he seems to eclipse Charlemagne. Only the intense modern interest in the epic explains the distortion, not iconographic evidence. This lecture will argue that the figure with the long red mantle in four contested panels is Charlemagne, whereas Roland, who makes few appearances, is clothed in a short coat of mail. The identification of the Christian warrior in three of these panels has been debated, but the mounted single combat (#16), is so well known as Roland that it is an icon for his legend. The traditional wisdom is overturned through a careful comparison of costumes, color, and helmet style. The lecture will also introduce the idea that the vernacular, not Latin version of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle is a source. This new reading repositions Charlemagne as the focal point of the window and offers insights into individual panels, especially the famous rondel with Roland, Durendal, the oliphant, and a surprise enemy.

October 2-6, 2007

Visit of His Excellency, Dr. Henri Lopes, Ambassador of the Republic of Congo to France, and internationally-renowned author. Co-sponsored by the Center for African Studies and the France-Florida Research Institute.

October 3, 2007, Dauer Hall 219, 4:00 – 5:00 pm
L’Ecrivain africain aujourd’hui
Conférence en Français/Lecture in French

October 5, 2007, Dauer Hall 219, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Baraza. Reception following the lecture.

November 8, 2007

4:00 pm, Gerson Hall 126
“The Social Dimension of Globalization: the Role of the International Labor Organization (ILO)”, presented by Jean-Francois Trémeaud, former Director of ILO. Co-sponsored by the UF International Center, the Center for European Studies, and the France-Florida Research Institute.

January 15

7:30 pm
Film screening of La Petite Jérusalem/Little Jerusalem by Karin Albou. Part of the FACE French Film Festival.
Location: Hippodrome Theater, 25 SE 2nd Place, Gainesville.

The intimate lives of two women in a low-income neighborhood of Paris are explored, raising questions of religious interpretation, freedom, sexuality and familial relationships. Read More…

January 22

7:30 pm
Film screening of L’Intrus by Claire Denis. Part of the FACE French Film Festival.
Location: Hippodrome Theater, 25 SE 2nd Place, Gainesville.

In a tale of both inner and outer journeys, a mysterious Russian shadows a man recovering from a black market heart transplant. Read More…

January 29

7:30 pm
Film screening of Carnages by Delphine Gleize with Jacques Gamblin, Chiara Mastroiani. Part of the FACE French Film Festival.
Location: Hippodrome Theater, 25 SE 2nd Place, Gainesville.

Circulation of the body parts of a bull, who is butchered after a tragic bullfight, ties together random stories and individual pathos. Read More…

February 8

4:00 pm
McQuown Room, 219 Dauer Hall
La femme come témoin de guerre: Les récits des infirmières de 1914-1918, a lecture by Professor Ruth Amossy of the University of Tel Aviv, Israel. Dr. Amossy is a specialist of French culture and literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, including critical theory, French discourse analysis, rhetoric and the theory of argumentation.

February 12-17

Dr. Catherine Grosdemange, Dean and Professor of Chemistry, Université de Strasbourg, France. Seminar plus meetings to establish research exchange.

February 12

  • 7:30 pm
    Film screening of Nathalie by Anne Fontaine. Part of the FACE French Film Festival. Location: Hippodrome Theater, 25 SE 2nd Place, Gainesville.
    A woman’s take on a classic love triangle, Nathalie is a film about desire, fantasy, manipulation and suspense. Read More…
  • 9:30 pm
    Film screening of Versailles, Rive Gauche (Versailles, Left Bank) by Bruno Podalydès. Part of the FACE French Film Festival.
    Location: Hippodrome Theate, 25 SE 2nd Place, Gainesville.
    Successive mishaps and uninvited guests transform a private evening of intimate conversation into something altogether different. Read More…

February 19

March 19

African Film Festival Traveling Film Series 2006-2007: Free & Open to the Public

  • Don’t F*** with me I have 51 brothers and sisters
    3:00 – 4:30 pm
    Dumisani Phakathi, South Africa, 2004, 86 min (in English & Zulu with English subtitles).This film is the story of Dumisani’s epic journey to find his 51 siblings and come to terms with the loss of his father as a child.  This film is as much the story of South Africa’s search for its origins as it is Dumisani’s.
  • Toi, Waguih
    March 19, 4:30 – 5:00 pm
    Namir Abdel Messeeh, Egypt / France, 2005, 28 min (in French & Arabi with English subtitles).The story of a relationship between a screenwriter son and his father, told through the silence of the father’s feelings about his political life.  Grand Prize winner at Rencontres du Moyen Metrage de Brive Festival.
  • A child’s love story / Un amour d’enfant
    5:30 – 7:06 pm
    Ben Biogaye Beye, Senegal, 2004, 96 min. (in French with English subtitles)This a touching investigation of innocent love between children in Senegal set against the background of a traditional class system.  Despite the difference in their background and family-lives, five young children become friends.  Omar is in love with Yacine, a pretty, intelligent girl from a wealthy family.  He writes her a love letter, but it only causes misunderstanding and a rift between the two.  Meanwhile, Demba falls in love with a beggar, and they share secret long looks and tender touches in their brief meeting time.
  • Ousmane
    7:10 – 7:25 pm
    Dyana Gaye, Senegal / France, 2006, 15 min. (in Wolof & French with English subtitles) – Dakar, Senegal.Ousmane, a 7 years-old child who begs in the streets, decides to write a letter to Santa Claus.
  • Whole: A trinity of Being,
    March 19, 8:00 – 8:16 pm
    Shelley Barry, South Africa, 2004, 16 min.Three experimental shorts which deal with sexuality, visibility, and voice from the perspective of a wheelchair use who turns the camera on herself to celebrate love and survival.
  • My lost home / ma maison perdue
    8 :20 – 8 :40 pm
    Kamal El-Mahouti, Morocco / France, 2001, 19 min. (in French & Arabic with English subtitles)The filmmaker recounts his childhood memories in the wake of the destruction of the housing project where he grew up, exploring the complexly intertwined history of France and Morocco through the eyes of Moroccan immigrants living in France.
  • The night with truth / La nuit de la vérité
    8:45 – 10 :25 pm
    Fanta Régina Nacro, Burkina Faso, 2004, 100 min. (in Dioula, French & more with English subtitles)Mirroring the political strife and genocide in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa, this film opens as preparations are being made to end a decade of civil war in a fictitious country. A peace agreement is about to be signed and celebrated in a night of reconciliation with a “laying down of arms.” As the powerful drumming begins, both rebels and government forces gather, bring with them years of rage, grief, hope, suspicious, and bitterness.

March 28

Visit by Samuel Sidibe, Director of the Museum National de Mali

Roundtable: The Future of Mud: a Mason’s Story, (Premiere showing), Architecture, Masons, and Modernity in Djenne, Mali: Questions raised by a film blending “Truth” and “Fiction.”

Co-Chairs: Samuel Sidibé, Musée National du Mali, Trevor Marchand, SOAS, and Susan Vogel, Columbia University.

The roundtable centers upon a new film, The Future of Mud: A Mason’s Story (53 minutes, co-produced by the panel chairs) on the state of architecture in Djenne now. The documentary presents issues of changing aspirations, new affluence, Djenne’s connection to a global world, and the future of the mason’s craft. It is firmly grounded in co-writer and co-producer Trevor Marchand’s long research in Djenne. The film, however, takes an unorthodox approach, casting individuals in roles – a mason, his assistant, and his family – and using staged scenes to tell a fictional narrative. We filmed our characters in their daily activities and then intercut the staged scenes seamlessly with the observational documentary footage and interviews. The technique of blending fact and fiction in the service of “truth” raises a number of compelling issues.

The roundtable has three parts: first, each participant will briefly introduce a question that they will be discussing – either concerning the film’s unusual documentary approach or the subject of masons and architectural change. Second we will have a screening of the film. In the final hour, each panelist will elaborate on the question he/she raised. Discussion with the audience.
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