Festival In Focus: How The American French Film Festival Is Developing Younger Audiences & Shining A Spotlight On “Cultural Exchange”

deadline.com:

One of the key initiatives of the American French Film Festival is its long-running education program, which provides 3,000 high school students each year with the opportunity to attend a screening and discussion with filmmakers at the DGA Theatre.

For the festival, it’s a rare opportunity to help actively develop younger audiences and expose them to French cinema. “At a time when everyone is on their phones and in-person interactions are declining, the American French Film Festival Education Program inspires students to truly engage,” says Anouchka van Riel, Deputy Director of TAFFF. “Through our screenings and Q&As with French actors and filmmakers at the DGA Theatre, as well as in-class materials we develop with educators, this effective annual program continues to encourage thoughtful discussion and nurture a new generation of French film enthusiasts.”  This year will mark the 17th year of its High School Screenings Program, and the festival is set to screen The Count of Monte Cristo, a 2024 period drama based on the 1844 novel of the same name by Alexander Dumas, to students across a five-day period from October 28.

Students from more than 60 different schools – largely from Southern California but, this year, some as far as Park City, Utah – will descend each day at the DGA Theatre to watch the Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière directed epic, which world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year followed by a Q&A with talent.

Samuel Goldwyn is releasing the title in the U.S. on December 20. For the festival, which is produced by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a collaboration between the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the Motion Picture Association (MPA), France’s Society of