French Film Festival 2010

The French Film Festival is an annual event in Australia, playing for about two weeks in most of the state capital cities.  I managed to catch a couple at the 2010 event.

Someone I Loved

Drama / relationship flick from France about life, love and loss as seen through the eyes of a woman and her father-in-law. 
It takes a little while before the film reveals where it's going, with mere hints in the beginning.  From there it really blooms as you follow the characters, with the time flying by.  Very satisfying, in that I like to find films that really have a French feel at the film festival, rather than a French version of something Hollywood.  Generally drama / relationship films are a safe bet.  Well worth watching.

Skirt Day.

A female teacher who wears skirts to school in defiance of the principal's and students' reactions has a day go from bad to worse when one of the students brings a gun to the classroom.
Wasn't my first pick, nor my second.  Ended up a little short of time and that winnowed down the choices, and this one bubbled to the surface. 
In some ways I was reminded of Class of 1999 and The Principal.  Sure, the links are tenuous (not really a spoiler, but Skirt Day is set in the present and doesn't feature killer androids) but when I think of teacher/student movies, those two really stand out.  Where Skirt Day differs is that whilst it does contain a lot of tension, it's a very human story, and one steeped in modern French culture.  It's probably unwise to treat Skirt Day as gospel when it comes to portraying the typical French school (in the same way The Principal, probably, does not portray the typical US school), but from an outsider, it's very interesting to see the racial and religious mixes.  Those two issues are covered by the film via student-student interactions, student-teacher, state-school and also amongst the wider community. 
The modern french culture that this film is positively steeped in, as well as the strong performances and gripping story, make it well worth watching.  Of all the films I saw at the French Film Festival *cough*, this film gets my Number One vote.