FSLC to Host French Film Festival, THE SHORTEST DAY; 1,900 Venues Worldwide Participating, 12/21

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today THE SHORTEST DAY (LE JOUR LE PLUS COURT), an international event celebrating French short films on the shortest day of the year, December 21st at 3PM, coordinated by The Centre National de la Cinematographie et de l'image animée (CNC). The screenings are supported by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and the Institut Français and will be FREE to the public at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center's Amphitheater.

Last year, for the 2011 edition, 500 venues participated organizing 6000 screenings worldwide. This year 1900 venues are organizing an event in 50 different countries and many cities in France, and all around the world such as Oran, Buenos Aires, Erevan, Bakou, Vancouver, Zagreb, Pekin, Madrid, Malaga, Tbilissi, Tel Aviv, Kyoto, Doha, London, Valencia, Lausanne, Taipei, Chittagong, Yaounde, Douchanbé, Istanbul, Kiev, Sebastopol, La Havane, San Salvador, Mombasa, Berne, Khartoum, Athènes, Dubai, Izmir, Tunis, Port au Prince...

The shorts were programmed by the Agence du court métrage's catalog, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Year-Round Director of Programming, Robert Koehler and Programming Associate, Isa Cucinotta, Marcela Goglio and Josh Strauss. The titles selected include:

Emilie Muller by Yvon Marciano, 20m
César nominated and winner of Best Short Film at the London Film Festival, EMILIE MULLER, follows a young actress who delivers an animated, yet apparently unexceptional, performance at her first audition in this deceptively simple black and white film-within-a-film, with a twist!

Mon petit frère de la lune by Frédéric Philibert, 6m
Told in black and white line animation, a little girl narrates her own explanation of why her autistic younger brother is different.

Squash by Lionel Bailliu, 27m
An Academy Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Film, SQUASH, is a 30 something high testosterone tale of two men involved in manipulation and mind games, ultimately turning into, and ending, in a story of blackmail. All of which is being revealed during a highly competitive and violent match of French squash.

Ya Basta! by Gustave Kervern and Sébastien Rost, 11m
A 2012 Cannes Film Festival selection, YA BASTA! is a Diane Arbus meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest tale which follows a group of mentally disabled students and their teachers on a charming escapade to find their destiny.

THE SHORTEST DAY will be held at 3PM on Friday, December 21st at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center's Amphitheater, 144 West 65th Street. The event will be free to the public, visit Filmlinc.com for more information.

ABOUT THE CNC Created in 1946, the Centre National du Cinema et de l'image animée (CNC) is a public administrative organization, set up as a separate and financially independent entity. The principal missions of the CNC are regulatory, support for the film, broadcast, video, multimedia and technical industries, promotion of film and television for distribution to all audiences, preservation and development of the film heritage.

ABOUT THE INSTITUT FRANCAIS The Institut Français promotes French culture overseas. Online, the cinema section of the IF website supplies films for non-commercial distribution to French cultural institutions abroad.

ABOUT THE CULTURAL SERVICES OF THE FRENCH EMBASSY The Cultural Services is a division of the French Embassy in the United States provides French and American artists, intellectuals, arts professionals, and the general public a platform and resources for cultural exchange. It is dedicated to creating transatlantic dialogue in the arts and education from French and American perspectives.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals. The New York Film Festival annually premieres films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States. New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, focuses on emerging film talents. Since 1972, when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, its annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor or filmmaker who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming and new releases at its Walter Reade Theater and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine. For more information, visit: FilmLinc.com