What a great month for catching up with recent French and Italian cinema, courtesy of The Festival of French Film and Visuali Italiane.

Festivalul Filmului Francez has just kicked off, celebrating its 28th edition, and you can catch it in Bucharest and 12 other cities. This year the motto is “VERTIGES”, i.e. vertigo, a marker of current times: fast-changing and unbalancing. The festival tackles environmental, political and social themes, introducing a section of genre fare, and teaming up with the local F-SIDES A Female Gaze Cineclub to discuss gender equality, sexual and sexist violence (if you are not familiar with this excellent initiative, check them out immediately: this is their site and Facebook page).

A lot to recommend here but I will stick to a lighter note and focus on the comedies, just because they are too good, and good comedy is hard to find. Quentin Dupieux has been directing zany pics for years now, and at great speed (at least one per year). They are all a hoot. Absurd, over-the-top, wonderfully weird and hilarious, this is laugh-out-loud, clever stuff. Yannick is set in a theatre when an annoyed audience member speaks takes matters into his own hands. If you like it, check out his last two wonders, Incredible But True and Smoking Causes Coughing, both from 2022. In fact, check out all his films, will be time excellently spent. And there is Monia Chokri’s The Nature of Love/ Simple comme Sylvain, taking an honest and wonderfully sharp look at romance and desire. Very very funny; chuckles guaranteed.

Not part of the fest, but also a French production, and too remarkable not to recommend, is Nicolas’ Philibert’s documentary On the Adamant/ Sur L’Adamant, currently in theatres. The title refers to a floating structure on the river Seine in Paris, hosting a daycare facility for persons with psychiatric conditions. Philibert approaches his subjects with the utmost care and respect, their humanity and dignity making On the Adamant a moving and very topical film. He has been directing beautiful documentaries for decades (Être et avoir/ To Be and to Have is a joy), and On the Adamant is just as impressive.

In its third edition, Visuali Italiane presents recent Italian films from the past three years and after the event has wrapped up in Bucharest, Iași, and Cluj-Napoca, it will visit Timișoara between 28 and 31 March. Do not miss Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera, glorious and impossible to describe in just a few words, but it includes artefacts, 1980s Italy, magic, and, of course, love. Like Dupieux and Philibert, she is a favourite of mine for her humanist, wondrous films. She is a truly unique filmmaker. The Wonders/ Le meraviglie (2014) and Happy as Lazzaro/ Lazzaro felice (2018) are fantastic, and available on platforms such as MUBI or Netflix.

Matteo Garrone is another great director (his 2018 Gomorrah is exhilarating cinema) and Io Capitano is a beautiful immigrant saga. An urgent film, pleading for empathy and humanity.

By Ioana Moldovan, columnist, ioana.moldovan@romania-insider.com

(Photo info & source: still from La chimera @Visuali Italiane // RO distributor: Independența Film // Prod: Tempesta, Amka Films, Ad Vitam Productions, ARTE France Cinéma, RAI Cinema, RSI - Radiotelevisione Svizzera di Lingua Italiana)