It was a jolly afternoon that we all spent at the Institut de France, to celebrate Frédéric Mitterrand‘s “installation” in Jeanne Moreau’s armchair at the Académie des Beaux Arts. His career was very diverse with a start as a history teacher at Ecole Bilingue Jeannine Manuel, followed by the management of two cinemas, l’Olympic, salle Marilyn and salle Pigozzi in … Read More
“The tie”, a political film
“La Cravate“, the latest film by artists Etienne Chaillou and Mathias Théry, is the story of the 2017 Presidential campaign of extreme right candidate, Marine Le Pen, as lived by an obscure 20 year old chubby boy from Amiens. Bastien grew up in the north of France in a perfectly normal middle class family. But he did not fit into … Read More
Louise Pressager puts Malakoff on the artistic map
I could not have been been happier than to celebrate this week, the fifth anniversary of Parisdiarybylaure with the same artist, Louise Pressager, who inaugurated the blog on January 21 2015. It is a beautiful coïncidence that her new show at Maison des Arts de Malakoff, opened last Tuesday (until April 5). And this time the size is at the … Read More
Paulin, Paulin, Paulin at Sotheby’s
There is an exhibition which will only last a week at Sotheby’s Paris, from 31 January to February 6, which you should absolutely see and very exceptionally, I am telling you about it before it actually opens: “Paulin, Paulin, Paulin”, is devoted to designer Pierre Paulin‘s work. His furniture, edited since he died in 2009, by his widow Maïa and … Read More
Lillian across America by foot, and a film
In 1926, Lillian Alling, a Russian citizen who lived in New York, decided she would walk back to her country through the Bering Straights. Her adventures over two years of deambulation, are filmed by Austrian director Andreas Horvath, in a two hour long tale of her American and Canadian crossing, Lilian. The Polish actress, Patricia Planik does not utter a … Read More
“J’accuse” the new Polanski film on the Dreyfus affair
“J’accuse”, (An officer and a Spy), the film written by Robert Harris with Roman Polanski, is a riveting enquiry on what went wrong with Capitaine Dreyfus, one of the most famous cases of antisemitism in the world, which took place in December 1894, in Paris. Dreyfusards and antidreyfusards defined who you were at the turn of the century, when this … Read More
J.R. in Brooklyn, a magical adventure!
You might have heard of street artist J.R., a French born, Brooklyn resident, graffiti-photographer, who uses street art to make the world better. Agnès Varda shot a documentary “Faces Places“, around small French villages with him in 2017, just before she died last March. A large retrospective of his actions,” J.R Chronicles” is at the Brooklyn Museum until May 3. … Read More
Woody Allen is back, at his best
At the press screening in July, journalists were laughing out loud and came out commenting on “the mother scene”. With “A Rainy Day in New York” Woody Allen brings out one of his excellent films, a color version of “Manhattan” without Gershwin but with a much better version of Mariel Hemingway, Elle Fanning, who looks stunning. All actors are surprising, … Read More