On April 21, the 18th City of Lights • City of Angels (COL•COA) Film Festival kicked off its annual celebration of French films with an opening night gala at DGA headquarters in Los Angeles. This year’s festival presented 41 features, including three International Premieres, 17 North American or U.S. Premieres, 16 West Coast Premieres and 20 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 featured the North American Premiere of Director Claude Lelouch’s new comedy-drama We Love You, You Bastard and was attended by FACF VIPs, film fans and directors, writers, and actors whose work would be viewed in the coming week.
Other highlights from this year’s festivities included the COL•COA Classics homage to Oscar-nominated Director François Truffaut with a panel and presentation of his film The Man Who Loved Women; a Focus on a Filmmaker salute to Director Cédric Klapisch with screenings of his 2002 film L’Auberge Espagnole and its 2014 follow-up Chinese Puzzle; the North American Premiere of writer/director/actor Dany Boon’s hit comedy Superchondriac, featuring a discussion about the making of the film with Boon, actors Kad Merad and Alice Pol and DGA Director-member Jerry Zucker; and the COL•COA Educational Program that presented screenings to 2,200 students at four local high schools.
Below, view photos from the 2014 COL•COA.