Minh-di TANG
Ambassador of France to Singapore

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the vOilah! French Film Festival.

This year’s edition is particularly special as we celebrate the festival’s 40th anniversary, making it Singapore’s longest running foreign film festival. It is also a tribute to the strength and longevity of the ties that bind Singapore and France in the cultural sphere as in many other fields.

As in previous years, we have put together a selection of the best recently-released French films for you to discover the variety of French cinema. You will be able to enjoy 36 films in total, from action-packed thrillers and romantic movies to costume dramas, including the much-anticipated Count of Monte Cristo, which has been a huge success in France, with more than 9 million tickets sold and Beating Hearts which was part of the official competition of the last Cannes Film Festival. We shall also have the privilege of welcoming the cast of the fantastic film Prodigies, consisting of Camille Razat, Mélanie Robert and Franck Dubosc.

French cinema has offered some of the most important and memorable films in the history of this art. As part of the festival’s 40th anniversary celebrations, The Projector will be screening masterpieces such as the iconic Amélie, as well as several French cinema classics: The Passion of Joan of Arc, The 400 Blows and Hate. Finally, with the passing of one of the most remarkable figures in French cinema, Alain Delon, the festival also wishes to pay tribute to his immense career by presenting two of his films: Le Samourai and Purple Noon.

This year, we are also extending our outreach efforts to make French cinema more accessible and available to everyone. We are thus renewing our partnership with People’s Association to organise screenings of family and child-friendly movies and animations at 15 sites, including Community Clubs and Integrated Community Hubs.

Finally, we will wrap up the festival with a joint evening with the Singapore International Film Festival and the screening of Eric Khoo’s last film Spirit World, a Franco-Singapore co-production starring celebrated French actress Catherine Deneuve, a perfect symbol of the ties that unite our two countries. This hand-in-hand work with SGIFF will be extended in December with professional meetings, and testifies to our mutual desire to bring our two film industries closer together in the coming years.

I am extremely grateful to our partners, Alliance Française de Singapour, Shaw Organisation and The Projector, and I thank them for their strong commitment to the vOilah! French Film Festival. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to all our sponsors without whom this 40th edition would not have been possible.

Happy screenings to all!