The second “Rendez-vous with French cinema”, showcasing the best of contemporary cinema, never seen before in India, will be presented by Unifrance, the agency promoting French cinema abroad. Celebrity actors, directors and producers will interact with India’s film industry.

The festival will also showcase legendary films including major masterpieces from the “New Wave” cinema in association with the Cinémathèque Française”.
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Placed right in the heart of the Alliance Française of Madras in Chennai, the “Jules Verne” Teachers Training Centre puts its human and material resources at the disposal of those in the educational field in Southern India. It follows on the same lines as the Delhi Teachers Training Centre for Northern India.

A literary feast: Readings and interactions with eminent French language authors and their Indian counterparts. This festival will enlighten and entertain audiences across several Indian cities. The “DSC Jaipur Literature Festival”, acclaimed as one of the foremost literary festivals in the world, will present a special focus on French writing.

Titi Robin built his personal musical universe by borrowing instinctively from various sources, including India and North Africa. His career spans 27 years, with over 200,000 records sold and more than1200 live performances throughout the world.

Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai: please check venue and dates on www.bonjour-india.com In the late seventies, Reunion Island poets and musicians revived the use of Creole language. Ziskakan was founded by Gilbert Pounia in 1979. Playing maloya music at kabary (meaning “assembly”), they developed a contemporary type of maloya infused with genuine Reunion Creole culture, mirroring the mix of its multi-cultural inhabitants. Ziskakan was awarded Best Group at Les Césaires de la Musique in 2007 for the album ‘Banjara’

Awek’s music is inspired by the classics; it finds its vibrant energy in Gospel music. With 6 albums and 13 years of experience behind them, the four Awek musicians have acquired a strength and maturity worthy of their peers on the other side of the Atlantic. Their blues charmed Memphis audiences during the International Blues Challenge in February 2008. Awek was elected band of the year at the Cognac Blues Passions festival.

An MTV host, singer, author, songwriter and producer, China is the quintessential eclectic artist who embodies the American idea of an entertainer. This trait was inherited from her mother, the award winning American soul singer Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Marion Baglan is a soprano who turned to a solo career after her debut “I the Chorus of the Opera de Tours” in 1998. Marion has performed at the Petit Treavon, at the Palace of Versailles and in Lahore and Karachi in Pakistan. Here in India she is accompanied by pianist Francois Juskowiak and plays her roles with flair and panache.

The Sharik Hasan Paris Trio is an Indo-French group of three young musicians from diverse backgrounds. They got together in Paris in 2008 searching for a common musical vision. Their unique compositions result from a combination of different influences such as classical, hip-hop, rock and jazz with much improvisation.

An extravagant street show brings alive – a monumental parade mixing opera, circus, burlesque along with gigantic giraffes and other circus characters.

Mayakkam Oxymore is an artistic and cultural merging of traditional art and new technologies of dance, painting and music from France and India. Each artist develops and validates his or her own craft, creating a show both visual and acoustic, where digital technologies become an extension of the performer, their movements and their gestures.

“Plan B”, created by Aurélien Bory was born out of the dialogue between the movement and the physical laws of gravity. “Plan B” brings alive – acrobats, jugglers, and actors who defy the forces of gravity through incredible imagery, skill and spectacular performances.

Blending hip-hop, flamenco, contemporary dance and circus arts, the show pays tribute to French cultural diversity. The nine dancers and circus artists of Company Käfig create a space transformed into a playground driven by the joy of creation.

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“French photographer Olivier Culmann, clicks people watching TV. He captures that instant when consciousness drifts, drugged by the phosphorescence of the cathode tubes. Nothing is more banal and unsettling. This is how, in this quasi-immobile passivity, with a numbed brain that television viewers receive the world in its entirety.” – Cécile Cazenave, Journalist

This exhibition presents the work of several Reunion Island Artists. Deeply anchored in the reality of today’s contemporary art, the work also bears a strong connection with history, forgotten stories, migrations as well as encounters, exchanges and cross breeding.

This audio-visual and interactive installation in urban public spaces will be a platform for work created by a variety of artists from varying cultural backgrounds.

In the wake of the graffiti movement, urban artists make use of paint as well as posters, stencils and installations, to create their own personal pictorial style.“Active Surfaces… art in urban space” unites the main players of Street Art in France – and brings them to India.

Widely exhibited, reproduced, borrowed and collected – Bernard Faucon’s works are one of the most original collections of the late 20th century. He is one of the first artists who has explored the universe of staged photography – the photographic “mise en scène”.

For almost 3000 years, embroidery has been part of Man’s determination to embellish his immediate environment. Originally suppliers to Napoleon III, the Micholet, and later Lesage families have been embroidering since 1868.

This program will bring together 30 leading French scientists from public and private research institutions. They will deliver more than 120 scientific talks in major Indian cities in a wide spectrum of fields, such as Laser & Plasma Physics, Aerospace and Aeronautics, Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Environment, Biotechnology and will encourage genuine bilateral dialogues on subjects of global importance.For more information, consult the French Science and Technology Service web site at: http://www.frenchsciencetoday.org/