News on Language and Culture from the French Embassy

August 2008

Welcome to our monthly bulletin on language and culture from the French Embassy. Click here to view other months. Click here to be removed from list.

French-Speaking Non-profit Organizations of New York City

This repertory of French-speaking societies and non-profit organizations - 501 (c) 3 - seeks to provide an overview of the Francophone communities of New York. The overall objectives of the survey are to provide useful information and a brief description of each association. These pages will be updated regularly.
- Definition of Non-Profit Organization - 501 (c) 3
- Alphabetical order
- Thematical listing | website


	La passion de Simone - Mostly Mozart Festival August 13, 15 (7:30pm) & 17 (4pm) Composer-in-residence Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone, written for the incomparable soprano Dawn Upshaw, is an austerely staged and powerfully heartfelt musical journey through the life of French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil. Directed by the renowned Peter Sellars and conducted by Saariaho’s Finnish countrywoman Susanna Mälkki, La Passion de Simone is a “magical union of words, music, and theater,” declares The Independent of London. Performed in French with English supertitles. Pre-concert discussion with Kaija Saariaho and Ara Guzelimian at 6:15 in the Irene Diamond Education Center. more \| website

The French Crime Wave: Film Noir & Thrillers, 1937-2000 August 8 through September 4, 2008 The French not only coined the term "Film Noir" (a play on Série Noire, a popular line of pulp crime novels) to define a certain kind of Hollywood thriller, but also had their own Golden Age of Noir, and a tradition of crime movies that continues to this day. This festival of 39 prime examples opens with the late ex-pat Jules Dassin’s classic heist picture Rififi, which kick-started a whole new cycle of French Noir, and includes both classics and rarities by such masters of the genre as Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le flambeur, Le Cercle rouge, Un flic), Claude Chabrol (La Cérémonie), François Truffaut (Mississippi Mermaid, The Bride Wore Black). Among the many stars showcased are the five great hommes durs (tough guys) of the genre — Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Alain Delon — and such femmes fatales as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, and Brigitte Bardot. more \| website

BAM - Tell no one August 1 to August 31 at 4:30, 7 & 9:30pm Pediatrician Alex Beck (François Cluzet), still devastated by the savage murder of his wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) in the early days of their marriage eight years ago, receives an anonymous email. When he clicks on the link he sees a woman's face standing in a crowd and being filmed in real time—Margot's face. Is she still alive? And why does she instruct him to "tell no one?" In French with English subtitles. “The young French director Guillaume Canet — channeling Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo while working from an American mystery novel by the uber-clever Harlan Coben — has fired off one terrific, twisty thriller. Hot-blooded, haunting and packed with the pleasures of the unexpected, Tell No One will pin you to your seat.” —Rolling Stone. more \| website

BAM - "La vie de Bohème" Tuesday, August 12 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm A playwright, an artist, and a musician struggle to make ends meet on the Left Bank in modern-day Paris. Aki Kaurismaki is one of the most important modern directors. He manages to make a movie out of nothing just like, say, Mike Leigh. And his characters are simply every-day people, whom he manages to transform into convincible movie heroes or, most likely, antiheroes. This movie is not different: it is very sad and also joyous at the same time. It treats a very serious subjects (pourness, loneliness, desperation) without being pathetic or overblown and it makes, in the most beautiful way, a strong connection between the characters and the viewer. more \| website

Strangers in Strange Lands August 5 & 7 at 7:30pm Maysles Cinema, a new theater devoted to documentary film and operated by the Maysles Institute, will present Strangers in Strange Lands: The Explorations of Great French Directors. Program Five of this series of screenings is dedicatd to Jean Epstein. Shown for the first time in the U.S. in a new restoration by Gaumont-Pathé Archive, Jean Epstein’s remarkable film weaves documentary footage of coastal life on Ouessant Island, Brittany, with the tale of a wounded fisherman’s journey for medical assistance. Born in Poland, Epstein began making narrative films with Pasteur in 1922; Luis Buñuel was Epstein’s assistant Fall of the House of Usher (1928). Epstein he was also a noted critic, film theorist, novelist; Finis Terrae or “Ends of the Earth” was one of several films Epstein shot on the islands off the coast of France. Finis Terrae showcases its director’s artist’s eye for landscape, technician’s prowess at special effects, and documentarian’s loving attention to intimate detail. Screenings are open to the public at the suggested admission of $7.The Maysles Cinema is located at 343 Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard at 127th Street, in New York City. more

Elodie O
Through August 25
elodieO is a staple of the New York City LES/Nublu electro scene that nurtured Kudu and The Brazilian Girls. Her sound is an elegant mix of 60’s Nico-esque pop and 90’s golden era trip-hop and down-tempo. Stubborn is a brilliant and complex album that is a suitable soundtrack for both a night on the town, and, the more intimate activities that often follow. Originally from Paris, elodieO sings, composes and arranges all the music on Stubborn with the exception of two re-arranged songs of by Serge Gainsbourg and The Cure. The album features guest spots from several internationally know artists, including Aaron and Jesse of the Brazilian Girls.| more

	Louise Bourgeois Trough September 28 Louise Bourgeois is a full-career retrospective of one of the most important artists of our time. This exhibition ate the Guggenheim Museum, which will fill the entire Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda and one adjacent gallery, will be the most comprehensive examination to date of Bourgeois’s long and distinguished. Moving freely between abstraction and figuration, she has developed a richly symbolic visual idiom that encompasses totemic forms, ambiguously gendered anatomical fragments, and towering spiders, as well as the assemblages of found objects that are encased in her environmental-scale installations. more \| website

	How soon is now? - Jeanne Verdoux Through August 18 How Soon Is Now? features an array of work by 36 artists from Artist in the Marketplace (AIM), one of the most celebrated and competitive programs for emerging artists in the country. The title, a nod to the 1985 hit song by The Smiths, alludes to the immediacy of being in the moment and the current state of the art world today.Jeanne Verdoux is one of the artists participating. Born in Paris, France, she studied graphic design at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués in Paris and the Royal College of Art in London.She has taught at School of Visual Arts and State University of New York and is a visiting critic at Yale University, School of Art and Design. more \| website

	Henri Cartier-Bresson \| Helen Levitt: Side by Side - Laurence Miller Gallery Through August 14 For the very first time Henri Cartier-Bresson and Helen Levitt, both internationally recognized twentieth century masters of street photography, will be exhibited side by side. Helen Levitt, at 95 years old, is considered by many the greatest living photographer within the tradition of the street photograph, of which her friend Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is perhaps the acknowledged master. Despite his being French and she being a New Yorker, they shared a sensibility rich in the poetic drama of the street and sophisticated in the formal nuances of the frame. Many wonderful juxtapositions of photographs by each will be shown: a near perfect pairing juxtaposes Cartier-Bresson’s boy carrying a wine bottle (Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954) along side Helen Levitt’s woman holding milk bottles (New York City, c. 1945). more \| website

	Atelier Jean Prouvé au MOMA Daily trough March 30, 2009 With all the excitement surrounding today's digital manufacturing technologies, it is interesting to look at an earlier historical moment of workshop mass-production, as practiced by the great French architect and designer Jean Prouvé (1901–1984). This exhibition examines Prouvé's collaborations within his Ateliers Jean Prouvé from idea to finished product.The installation focuses on the evolution of the "Standard" Chair and includes other examples of furniture and buildings that demonstrate Prouvé's approach to construction and his sensitive handling of materials—particularly his inventive applications of sheet metal. more \| website

The Great Explorers Student Contest
The French Embassy and the Delegation of Quebec in New York will host a series of school contests to celebrate Quebec's 400th anniversary and to honor the famous French explorers of North America (Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, LaSalle). All tri-state students from grade K to 8 are eligible to participate. Around 80 winners will be chosen and great prizes will be offered, the first super-winner will win a trip to Quebec.Visit the education page of our website FrancophonieNY to know about this contest. The contest will be launched on September 1.

Student contest on Europe
On the occasion of the French Presidency of the European Union, the French Embassy in partnership with the French-American Chamber of Commerce, the French Institute Alliance Française and the French-American Fondation will organize a high school contest opened to all Tri-state area students. Visit the education page of our websites Frenchculture and TeachEurope to know about this contest. The contest will be launched on August 15.

Volunteer Correctors Needed
Volunteer correctors needed for the high school contest on Europe which will be lauched in the Fall 2008. Volunteer correctors will have to read fifty 500-word student essays during the first week of November 2008. Volunteer correctors must be 21 or older and be able to read French and English perfectly. Volunteer correctors will receive a gift and will be invited to the contest's ceremony and cocktail reception in New York in December 2008. Please email your name, contact information and a short bio to contest@teacheurope.org

The world speaks French
French is one of the most studied languages in the American educational system. It must maintain its place in this highly competitive environment. The French Language Initiative is focused on promoting the study of French language and French-speaking cultures and increasing the number of students enrolling in French programs nationwide. The French Language Initiative is a partnership between the Embassy of France in the U.S. and the American Association of Teachers of French. The forum is very interactive and you can find useful information about bilingual programs, the Heritage French Program, teachers ressources... Keep the French way! | website

Learn French
Learn French online using auplaisirdeslangues method. This specialized website offers to learn other languages, French for second language for example, especially for grade 1 to 6. Schools will have a discount.
Contact: Brigitte Mermoz (Part-time lecturer at the UPPA and UB universities in early 'French as a foreign language', ex-instructor at the IFM Eurécole (Batignoles, Paris), ex-english teacher consultant in grammar-school in Paris).
Brigitte et Rudi MERMOZ
Librairie AU PLAISIR DES LANGUES
1 rue de l'horloge - 64300 ORTHEZ
Phone - fax : (1133) 05 59 69 38 64

French Teacher for M.S. 22.
Middle School 22 in the Bronx is hiring one teacher for its French dual language academy. The Teacher needs to have native or near-native fluency in French and will teach the content areas in French at the A1 and A2 levels. He/she will collaborate with three other teachers to provide instruction inall content areas to 100 students ages 10-14. Teachers must have NYS certification or an equivalent in one of the following areas: ELA, Science, Math, Social Studies, Middle School Generalist, or Common Branch. Bilingual extension preferred. Please send cover letter and resume to Josh Brookstein at JBrookstein@schools.nyc.gov.

One teacher needed at PS125
PS125 in Harlmen is looking for one certified teacher for the elementary/primary education. The teacher needs to have native or near-native fluency in French and will teach all subjects of Grades 1 and 2 in French. Contact: Principal Claudette Lustin at CLustin@schools.nyc.gov

A bientot,

Fabrice Jaumont
Education Attache
French Embassy
972 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10075
fabrice.jaumont@diplomatie.gouv.fr

More news on French cultural and educational events on http://www.frenchculture.org
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