The 17th City of Lights • City of Angels (COL•COA) Film Festival began its annual celebration of French films with an opening night gala on April 15, at DGA headquarters in Los Angeles. This year’s COL•COA presented 38 features, including three International Premieres, 11 North American or U.S. Premieres, 16 West Coast Premieres and 19 new shorts. All screenings were free to DGA members.
COL•COA is presented by the Franco-American Cultural Fund (FACF), a partnership of the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Picture Association, France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music, and the Writers Guild of America, West. The festival is produced in association with France’s Writers, Directors and Producers Association (L’ARP), the CNC, the Los Angeles Film and TV Office of the French Embassy, and Unifrance.
The opening night gala was attended by FACF VIPs, film fans and directors, writers, and actors whose work would be viewed in the coming week.
Highlights from this year’s festivities included COL•COA Classics screenings of Director Jacques Demy’s 1963 film Bay of Angels restored through a partnership with the Franco-American Cultural Fund; an homage to the late Director Maurice Pialat with a COL•COA Classics screening of his 1983 feature To Our Loves; and a screening of Louis Malle’s 1963 drama The Fire Within, selected by DGA Director-member Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom).
COL•COA also honored Director Alain Resnais in its Focus on a Filmmaker event with a premiere of his new film You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, and a special screening of his acclaimed 1974 crime drama Stavisky.
