Nos Batailles kicks off French Festival Cinema at Rivoli

The romantic comedy "Nos Batailles" [Our Struggles], co-written and directed by the French-Belgian Guillaume Senez, will be opening the 19th edition of the French Cinema Festival, on 23 October, at 10 pm, at Rivoli.

The French Film festival is an initiative by Porto Municipal Theatre and the Institut Français du Portugal, sponsored by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, the Director of Cyrano de Bergerac (1990).

The event runs till 28 October, featuring film previews, classics, animation cinema and masterclasses ACID - Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion [Association of independent cinema for its distribution], and it will be held in several Portuguese cities, namely Porto, Lisboa, Almada, Leiria, Coimbra, Viana do Castelo, Beja, Seixal, Faro, Aveiro and Setúbal.

"Our Struggles", by Guillaume Senez, opens the Festival and tells the story of Romain Duris, a factory worker with strong social convictions, a hardworking husband and father that works in a warehouse in provincial France.

Suddenly, life circumstances force him to rethink every aspect of his life, where he has to find a balance for his two kids, taking care of food and clothes and a reliable structure for his two sons.

This film is rewarding to watch as it explores the not so usual narrative of men as single parents left to cope with "things at home".

In Porto, there will also be school sessions and two masterclasses, following film screenings, in the context of the ACID Cycle, filmmakers with own production, since 1993, at the Cannes International Festival, which focused on Portuguese cinematography in this year's edition, at the ACID Trip#2 Portugal.

See here for full information.