ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

The leading foreign film festival is back in Sydney cinemas with new takes on love, sex, death and other penetrating themes favoured by French creatives. The starry cast includes names such as Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Carre, Gerard Depardieu, Audrey Tatou and Kristen Scott Thomas, who with the other actors each give their own heartfelt, idiosyncratic performances in films Australians are drawn to for their sensual quality and their unique perspectives on what it means to be alive in the modern world.

The Australian premiere of The Cherry on the Cake follows the escapades and anxieties of a beautiful woman who suffers from androphobia – an abnormal fear of men that causes havoc in her romantic life. Cannes Film Festival favourite In a Rush examines the delight and anguish of extramarital affairs and the myth of monogamous existence, while Looking for Hortense sees a spectacular performance by Kristin Scott Thomas as a long-suffering and neurotic director, along with her disillusioned husband, Jean-Pierre Bacri, and the charming Isabelle Carre.

The Man Who Laughs is a touching tragedy based on the acclaimed Victor Hugo novel about a travelling showman (Gerard Depardieu) who takes in a blind girl and a boy with a disfigured face similar to Batman’s ‘the Joker’. It is an extravagantly designed film from the director of last years hit Romantics Anonymous, and a favourite of the Venice Film Festival.

If no others, be sure to catch Welcome Abroad (pictured), a life affirming adaptation of the popular novel by French author Eric Holder that portrays the journey of two lost souls of how their strange connection helps them to find a reason to live and a renewed lust for life. Patrick Chesnais (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) gives a magnificent performance as depressed artist Taillandier, and Jeanne Lambert makes her debut as the troubled teenager thrown out of home, who like every heroine in these French stories is both stunning and enchantingly beguiling in her role.

Mar 5- 24, Palace Cinemas and Hayden Orpheum, $16.50-19, affrenchfilmfestival.org