WEST PALM BEACH, FLA., April 23, 2001 — The running joke at Saturday evening’s Palm Beach International Film Festival’s gala awards show came at the expense of a distinguished honoree.
“I’m not Leslie Caron, I’m sorry,” said French director Patrick Braoude when presented with his fellow countrywoman’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Caron, the star of An American in Paris, Gigi and Chocolat, had announced a week earlier that she could not attend the festival because of a last-minute scheduling conflict.
“I’ll give [the award] to her only if I meet her and she gives me a kiss,” Braoude said. He told the audience at the 2,193-seat Kravis Center for the Performing Arts that he had never met Caron but considered her an inspiration for becoming a Hollywood success.
Even song-and-tap-dance man Gregory
Hines, who provided the evening’s entertainment, poked fun at Caron‘s absence.
“I am Leslie Caron,” Hines declared after crooning his first song, “Lost With You.”
The audience knew better.
French director Jean
Becker, the other Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, accepted his honor in person. Becker, the son of acclaimed director Jacques Becker, helmed One Deadly Summer, Elisa and The Children of the Marshland.
“We, the French cinema, need you,” said Becker as he implored U.S. audiences to open their eyes to the virtues of French filmmaking.
If the evening had a distinctively Gallic flavor, it was because the sixth annual PBIFF placed a heavy emphasis on French cinema. The 8-day festival, which ends Thursday, includes screenings of 20 French films and a retrospective of the work of Beckers elder and junior, all selected by the Children of the French Cinema. The not-for-profit group is dedicated to promoting French cinema in the United States and co-organizes the French Film Festival in Gainesville, Fla.
Francois Rivadat, founder of the Children of the French Cinema, is spearheading efforts to partner PBIFF with UniFrance. The association promotes French movies abroad. It also sponsored the now-defunct Sarasota (Fla.) French Film Festival.
Several of the French filmmakers in attendance at the gala warmly greeted any such partnership.
“We have some difficulties showing our movies in the United States,” Braoude, the director of Second Life, said before the gala.
Going the festival route, Braoude said, is a way to interest U.S. audiences in the French cinema.
One way for this to happen is for Americans to get into the “habit” of reading subtitles, Braoude said. A recent visit to a Virginia film festival left Braoude encouraged because 1,000 children attended and enjoyed a screening of a French-language family film, he said.
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Denis Bardiau, the director of festival entry Marty’s World, expressed hope that the box office success of the Taiwanese-language Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon would prompt Americans to watch films in languages other than English.
“In France, this is not a problem,” Bardiau said. “We love subtitles. We want to hear the actors in the films talk in their own language. It’s very important to hear the sense of their voices.”
A deal with UniFrance would please Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson, considered the driving force behind the PBIFF.
“We are interested in working something out with UniFrance,” Aaronson said before the gala. “I think Palm Beach County would be a wonderful place for the French to have a portion of our film festival. It will always be known as the Palm Beach International Film Festival, but there is nothing that says it can’t be cooperation and in partnership with the French.”
For his efforts to launch and foster the PBIFF, Aaronson received the newly established PBIFF Commissioner Burt Aaronson Founder’s Award–named after him and given to a community or business leader who aids the festival’s development.
“I’m really humbled by it, really,” Aaronson said of the award. “People who know me know I don’t get humbled that easily. It, so to speak, struck a chord.
“I was told that I was going to get an award, a founder’s award, but I didn’t know it was going to be an award which would be a continuing award in my name. That’s what shocked me. We politicians get awards all the time, but this is something very special, to have an award in your name is something quite special.”
The PBIFF may struggle year after year with low attendance, but it is proving a success when it comes to nurturing the talent of the county’s film students, Aaronson said. The PBIFF donates 100 percent of its profits in the form of grants and scholarships to film students and high school and college programs. This year, it gave two $5,000 scholarships and $6,700 in prizes to the winners of its film competition. Fourteen county schools also will be eligible to apply for money from a newly established equipment fund.
“One of the objectives of the festival is to have young people trained in schools,” Aaronson said. “When we started six years ago there were 500 students in a program in various schools throughout the county. Now we have 13 schools with over 2,100 students enrolled in them. Where has it come? A long way.”
