SFIFF54 Closing Night: On Tour
Mathieu Amalric (France/Germany 2010)
The 54th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21–May 5) will close with Mathieu Amalric’s directorial feature about brassy American burlesque performers touring the French countryside. Several of the featured performers are expected to attend. Then, the International will have its final hurrah following the screening at the Closing Night celebration at the Factory.
Acclaimed French actor Mathieu Amalric directs and stars in this unsentimental homage to the burlesque show and outsized female personalities barely contained by the proscenium stage. This chatty, bawdy entertainment reminds us that women have real bodies—and they want to run the show. All the women in On Tour—winner of last year’s FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival—are authentic American performers of what is dubbed the New Burlesque. Their acts are not only comic, theatric and erotic but also hypnotic, draped knowingly in feather boas, in a wink to audiences who think they’re watching just a striptease. Keeping the acts and the narrative flowing is the troupe’s manager, Joachim (played by Amalric, in a performance that recalls his lovable alienated misfits in Arnaud Desplechin’s films). A former French TV producer who left France for the United States after some untold disgraces, Joachim has found renewed purpose with a bevy of burlesque queens. He accompanies them to France for a tour of the countryside that will be either a journey of redemption or an utter failure. For the sassy brassy ladies, it’s a different story. They’ve been promised Paris, but they are willing to give their all in the seedy theaters Joachim books for them in backwater towns along France’s west coast. They are pros after all and, in the end, the show must go on.
At 9:30 pm the Closing Night party kicks off at the Factory, 525 Harrison, near First Street. Partygoers will bring down the final curtain on SFIFF54 with festive drinks, hors d’oeuvres and music inspired by the Gallic/American, neo-burlesque spirit of On Tour.
Written by Mathieu Amalric, Philippe di Folco, Marcelo Novalis Teles, Raphaëlle Valbrune. Photographed by Christophe Beaucarne. With Mathieu Amalric, Miranda Colclasure, Suzanne Ramsey, Linda Marraccini, Julie Ann Muiz, Angela de Lorenzo, Alexander Craven. (112 min, Le Pacte)
Acclaimed French actor Mathieu Amalric directs and stars in this unsentimental homage to the burlesque show and outsized female personalities barely contained by the proscenium stage. This chatty, bawdy entertainment reminds us that women have real bodies—and they want to run the show. All the women in On Tour—winner of last year’s FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival—are authentic American performers of what is dubbed the New Burlesque. Their acts are not only comic, theatric and erotic but also hypnotic, draped knowingly in feather boas, in a wink to audiences who think they’re watching just a striptease. Keeping the acts and the narrative flowing is the troupe’s manager, Joachim (played by Amalric, in a performance that recalls his lovable alienated misfits in Arnaud Desplechin’s films). A former French TV producer who left France for the United States after some untold disgraces, Joachim has found renewed purpose with a bevy of burlesque queens. He accompanies them to France for a tour of the countryside that will be either a journey of redemption or an utter failure. For the sassy brassy ladies, it’s a different story. They’ve been promised Paris, but they are willing to give their all in the seedy theaters Joachim books for them in backwater towns along France’s west coast. They are pros after all and, in the end, the show must go on.
At 9:30 pm the Closing Night party kicks off at the Factory, 525 Harrison, near First Street. Partygoers will bring down the final curtain on SFIFF54 with festive drinks, hors d’oeuvres and music inspired by the Gallic/American, neo-burlesque spirit of On Tour.
Written by Mathieu Amalric, Philippe di Folco, Marcelo Novalis Teles, Raphaëlle Valbrune. Photographed by Christophe Beaucarne. With Mathieu Amalric, Miranda Colclasure, Suzanne Ramsey, Linda Marraccini, Julie Ann Muiz, Angela de Lorenzo, Alexander Craven. (112 min, Le Pacte)
Thursday, May 5. Screening 7:00 pm, party 9:30 pm
Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street; Factory, 525 Harrison Street. Film and party $65 members, $80 general; VIP tickets $115 members, $140 general.
Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street; Factory, 525 Harrison Street. Film and party $65 members, $80 general; VIP tickets $115 members, $140 general.