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The Tenth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series continues this weekend. — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema. This year’s fest kicked off last weekend with a screening of Bertrand Tavernier’s acclaimed documentary My Journey Through French Cinema.

There are two more events for the Tenth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival happening this weekend:

Saturday, March 9th at 7:30pm – Casque D’Or. Ticket information can be found Here

Jacques Becker lovingly evokes the belle epoque Parisian demimonde in this classic tale of doomed romance — the French equivalent of the legend of Frankie and Johnny. When gangster’s moll Marie (Simone Signoret) falls for reformed criminal Manda (Serge Reggiani...

The Tenth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series starts this Friday, March 2nd. — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema. This year’s fest kicks off with a screening of Bertrand Tavernier’s acclaimed documentary My Journey Through French Cinema, the director’s personal reflections on key films and filmmakers. Several of the works he highlights — such as Jacques Becker’s “Casque d’or” and Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï” — are screened at this year’s fest.

Tickets: $13 General Admission. Cinema St. Louis Members: $10. Students: $10. Webster. U students: Free. Tickets for My Journey Through French Cinema can be purchased Here

All films are screened at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood).

Friday,...

The 10th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the 1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

This year’s fest kicks off with a screening of Bertrand Tavernier’s acclaimed documentary “My Journey Through French Cinema,” the director’s personal reflections on key films and filmmakers. Several of the works he highlights — such as Jacques Becker’s “Casque d’or” and Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï” — are screened at this year’s fest.

The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features New Wave master Jacques Rivette’s visually sumptuous “La belle noiseuse.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with Jean Renoir...

Death Watch director Bertrand Tavernier on Harry Dean Stanton: "He also had social graces and immediately knew how to talk, to Romy Schneider who immediately liked him."

Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (La Mort En Direct), based on the novel by David Compton with original music by Antoine Duhamel (Fernando Trueba's favourite composer), shot by Pierre-William Glenn in Scotland, stars Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel with Max von Sydow and Harry Dean Stanton. The My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage à Travers Le Cinéma Français) director shared his memory of the time he spent with Harry Dean, talking about John Huston (Stanton fresh off filming Huston's Wise Blood with Brad Dourif and Amy Wright), Romy Schneider's reaction to the man with "social graces", and Jack Nicholson's admiration for the great talent that Harry Dean Stanton possessed.

Harry Dean Stanton in his last starring role in John Carroll Lynch...

"Only one thing matters. Taking a step forward, even if it's a tiny one." Cohen Media Group has released an official Us trailer for Bertrand Tavernier's cinematic look back titled My Journey Through French Cinema (or Voyage à travers le cinéma français). The documentary is an examination of Tavernier's love of and experience with French cinema, from the films he enjoyed as a boy to his own early career, told through portraits of key creative figures. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year in the Cannes Classics section, and looks like a lovely and exhilarating look at so much thrilling cinema from France over the years. Described as a "magnificent, epic documentary... a lifetime in the making," Tavernier looks back at films from Renoir, Godard, and Melville, along with fascinating discussing about cinema past & present. Us trailer (+ poster) for Bertrand Tavernier's My Journey Through French Cinema, from YouTube: Writer-director Bertrand Tavernier is truly one of the grand auteurs ...

If you’re looking for a film course this summer, one might be able to accomplish such a thing in the span of one sitting thanks to a new film. A new trailer has landed for My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage à travers le cinéma français), a documentary which follows Bertrand Tavernier‘s trek through the annals of French Cinema (if you couldn’t guess from the title) from when he was a young chap through to his own career.

Charting 50 years of cinema in France, the film has been hailed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, and looks to be a touching and detailed inquiry into a specific brand of cinematic language, as well as the idea of going to the movies as a whole. See the trailer below, along with a poster and synopsis, and if you’re in NYC, head to Quad Cinema, where they will...

Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider in Max Et Les Ferrailleurs - Bertrand Tavernier: "I see Claude Sautet as the son of Jacques Becker."

In the third and final installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) he discusses his dedication to Jacques Becker (Casque D'Or, Édouard Et Caroline) and Claude Sautet (Max Et Les Ferrailleurs), Mireille Balin's dress in Jean Delannoy's Macao, l'Enfer Du Jeu (Gambling Hell), Jean Gabin, not forgetting Jean-Pierre Melville's Army Of Shadows (L'Armée Des Ombres), Léon Morin, Prêtre or Le Silence De La Mer, Jean Paul Gaultier and Falbalas (Paris Frills), Mila Parély in Coco Chanel, Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country (Partie De Campagne), Joseph Kosma, Sylvia Bataille and Jacques Lacan, Howard Hawks's Red River and Only Angels Have Wings, and not having to see Rio Bravo ever again.

Bertrand Tavernier on Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma's Les Feuilles Mortes with Yves Montand in Marcel Carné's Les Portes De La Nuit: "The birth of the song. I mean, that's a good scene." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the second installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français we go towards Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait, Lino Ventura and Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Gabin in Jean Delannoy's adaptation of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret, Bernard Blier in Henri Verneuil's Le Président, Nadja Tiller in Gilles Grangier's Le Désordre Et La Nuit, Eddie Constantine, and composers Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, George Van Parys, and Paul Misraki.

Martin Scorsese critiquing a Robert De Niro performance in a film by another director is unimaginable to Bertrand. "Distance is important to give you a wider vision of things."

Lino Ventura to Bertrand Tavernier on...

Bertrand Tavernier with Anne-Katrin Titze: "Josef von Sternberg's Macao. Dubbed in Vietnamese and I have never been able to watch the film again ..." Photo: Sophie Gluck

The day before the opening of the 54th New York Film Festival, I met with Bertrand Tavernier for an in-depth conversation on his documentary My Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) that spanned fashion from Mila Parély wearing Coco Chanel's ocelot coat in Jean Renoir's La Règle Du Jeu, the daring of Mireille Balin's deep décolleté in Jean Delannoy's Macao, L'Enfer Du Jeu, to Jean Paul Gaultier's reaction to Jacques Becker's Falbalas.

Bertrand Tavernier: "Also, it's learning about myself. How I discovered those films."

Also, Robert Mitchum in Vietnamese, never having to see Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo again, Yves Montand and the birth of Autumn Leaves, Ernst Lubitsch interactions between Lino Ventura...