Today and tomorrow, the Instituto Francés in Madrid is screening at 21.30 two of last year’s French cinema hits, A Summer with Fifi (this evening), by Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan, and The Passengers of the Night (tomorrow), by Mikhaël Hers.
The first of the screenings, A Summer with Fifi, is a tender comedy about summer love, and tells how in Nancy, eastern France, during the summer, Sophie, a 15-year-old girl, trying to escape her troubled home environment, seizes the opportunity to get hold of a set of keys to her wealthy friend Jade’s house. While enjoying the spacious home, which she thought was empty for the summer, she bumps into her friend’s older brother Stéphane, who, as fate would have it, was also planning to stay. But instead of kicking her out, Stéphane decides to leave the door open by inviting Sophie for an unexpected summer.
Friday’s film, The Night Passengers, is a beautifully detailed and nuanced portrait of a Parisian family. In the Paris of 1981, there is an air of change and hope. Elisabeth has just separated and must cope with her new situation: supporting her two teenage children and looking after herself. She gets a job on the late-night radio programme “Les Passagers de la nuit” and there she meets Talulah, a troubled and very peculiar teenager, whom she decides to take into her home. The young girl’s influence and free spirit changes the trajectory of their lives forever.
