Cambridge Film and Screen will be hosting French filmmaker and theatre director Christophe Honoré as its Filmmaker in Residence for 2023. Honoré will be in Cambridge in late April and early May and will be participating in a variety of screenings and informal meetings with students.

Honoré is one of the most innovative, prolific, and diverse fiction filmmakers working in Europe today. His first feature, Tout contre Léo (Close to Leo, 2002), adapted from his own eponymous young adult novel, directly addresses the AIDS epidemic, and sexuality has continued to play a central role in his work, from Ma Mère (My Mother, 2006) which turn to a Bataille novella to explore the vicissitudes of sexuality to the recent Plaire, aimer, et courir vite (Sorry Angel, 2018) which presents a tender portrait of gay life in 1990s France.

An heir to the nouvelle vague, Honoré is deeply attuned to France’s cinematic history, and pays homage to it his own queer way. His films have embraced a variety of genres and experimental styles—from the tragicomic homage to the musical in Les Chansons d’amour (Love Songs, 2007), to Chambre 212 (On a Magical Night, 2019) and its mise-en-abîme closet drama, to the seemingly effortless neo-nouvelle vague realism of films like Dans Paris (In Paris, 2006).

Cambridge Film and Screen will be partnering with the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse in a series of screenings at which Honoré will be present for post-screening conversations with the public. A symposium on his work, featuring a variety of Cambridge-based and international scholars, will be held on 5 May at St John’s College.

The Filmmaker in Residence programme was established in 2016. Filmmakers to have participated in the programme are: Joanna Hogg (2016); Gianfranco Rosi (2017); Lucrecia Martel (2018); Todd Solondz (2019); and Peggy Ahwesh (2021).

Cambridge Film & Screen

Email: office@film.cam.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1223 760355