Screening
dir. Emmanuel Finkiel, 2018, 127 mins

Memoir of War is an ambitious adaptation of Marguerite Duras’s challenging WWII semi-autobiography, The War: A Memoir (La Douleur), originally published in 1985 and drawn from diaries written during the war. When she finds two old notebooks in a forgotten box, Marguerite Duras (Mélanie Thierry) remembers her somewhat ambiguous past in the French Resistance and the unbearable pain of waiting for the return of her deported husband Robert Antelme.

The screening will be introduced by filmmaker and A Nos Amours co-founder Adam Roberts.

Adam Roberts has made films, notably with dancers Jonathan Burrows and Sylvie Guillem. He co-founded A Nos Amours with Joanna Hogg, to screen overlooked or important work that might not easily find an audience. A retrospective of films by Chantal Akerman and an exhibition of her installation work resulted between 2013 and 2015. Adam Roberts is currently working on a text following an award from the Stuart Croft Foundation.

Related events:



Related / Latest Publication:
Marguerite Duras, The War: A Memoir (The New Press, 2008)
8.40pm
£11, conc. £9


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Marguerite Duras

© Margaux Shore

Concert

Frànçois Atlas will perform songs from his album Les Fleurs du mal: a series of musical adaptations from poems by France’s great spleen-loving poet Charles Baudelaire, including classics such as À une Passante or Parfum exotique. Reuniting the sensuous rhymes of Baudelaire’s decadent poetry with oriental sonorities, Frànçois will recreate the doomed, romantic ambiance of the late 19th century.

Related event:



Related / Latest Publication:
Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil (Alma Classics, 2016)
8.30pm
£7, conc. £5


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Frànçois Atlas Charles Baudelaire

© Étienne Carjat - Domaine public

Talk

French poetry specialists Helen Abbott and Caroline Ardrey will present the Baudelaire Song Project, exploring the legacy of French poet Charles Baudelaire’s seminal text Les Fleurs du Mal and the challenges of adapting his work into performance with musician Frànçois Atlas. Chaired by researcher Nina Rolland, in partnership with the University of Birmingham.

Related event:



Related / Latest Publications:
Helen Abbott, Monograph: Baudelaire in Song 1880–1930 (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil (Alma Classics, 2016)
7.30pm
£7, conc. £5


Learn more about
Helen Abbott Caroline Ardrey Frànçois Atlas Charles Baudelaire Nina Rolland

© David Levenson/Getty Images (from The Guardian website) & Catherine Tambrun

Talk

Music & Literature editor and former Booker International Prize judge Daniel Medin will be chairing a series of readings and conversations about the dreams and fictions surrounding the social and political debates of today. This salon-style event will see Jonathan Coe talking about his new novel Middle England, set in the aftermath of the British referendum, French writer Olivia Rosenthal and her translator Sophie Lewis reading from To Leave with the Reindeer and questioning our modern ways of life, and Italian writer and FILL festival co-founder Claudia Durastanti discussing the place of European fiction in our reading landscapes.

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Related / Latest Publications:
Claudia Durastanti, Cleopatra goes to Prison (Dedalus, 2019)
Daniel Medin, Music and Literature No. 8 (2018)
Olivia Rosenthal, To Leave with the Reindeer (And Other Stories, 2019)
Jonathan Coe, Middle England (Viking, 2018)
7pm
£7, conc. £5


Learn more about
Jonathan Coe Claudia Durastanti Daniel Medin Olivia Rosenthal Sophie Lewis David Mildon

© Ella Baron

Exhibition & Talk

Following her recent solo exhibition at Christie’s London, Times Literary Supplement illustrator Ella Baron will be exhibiting a selection of drawings and recent cover illustrations. Nominated as Young Cartoonist of the Year in 2017, Ella Baron’s images are a celebration of the commitment to ideas, literature, and the strong ties between words, images and politics.

The artist will give an introduction to the exhibition on 15 May at 6pm.

Free access to the exhibition during La Mediathèque opening hours until 20 May



6pm
Free


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Ella Baron

Talk

Sarah Ardizzone, translation mentor for the National Centre for Writing, Daniel Hahn, founder of the Translators Association First Translation Prize, and Ellie Steel, editor at Harvill Secker, will be kicking off the festival with a discussion about the art of translation, followed by a selection of pitches by emerging translators about the French language books they are most excited about this year. In partnership with Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize and The Starling Bureau.

Related event:



Related / Latest Publications:
Gaël Faye, Sarah Ardizzone, Small Country (Vintage, 2019)
Daniel Hahn, Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015)
5pm
£5


Learn more about
Sarah Ardizzone Daniel Hahn Ellie Steel