Screenings, meetings, debates on several screens in Montpellier
A major unmissable event for Montpellier film buffs, the Chrétien Cinema Festival, chaired by Luc Jourdan, has been run for more than twenty years by the Chrétien et Cultures association, and Profil and supported by the City of Montpellier.
The 2025 edition, scheduled from January 24 to February 2, offers a program that combines screenings, meetings, debates, on several screens in Montpellier: from the Rabelais Center to the Nestor Burma cinema, via the Utopia or the Gaumont Comédie and since this year at the Caroussel. Also with a few meetings scheduled in Prades-le-Lez, at the Jacques Brel cinema, as well as at the Kinépolis in Béziers (formerly Monciné).
« To celebrate 130 years of cinema, the festival honors heroines, heroes and anti-heroes. We rub shoulders with spiritual heroines like Joan of Arc or union heroines like Norma Rae. We come across green heroes like the lawyer in Dark Waters or spy heroes like Joseph Turner in The three days of the Condor. These characters, models of humanity, will take the public on irresistible adventures. On the antihero side, we will meet those of Fall down girls and shut up orA very discreet hero. The heroines and heroes of the 2025 festival are arriving from the West: a third of them come from the United States. A way to pay homage to American cinema. Heroines and heroes also arrive from the East: Kosovo, Iran, Afghanistan, even Japan. Those from the European continent are not left out, for them, fraternity is a key word », Explains Luc Jourdan, president of the Christian Cinema Festival.
A highlight will mark this edition: a preview will take place on Tuesday January 14 at 8:15 p.m. at the Pathé Gaumont Comédie Cinema in Montpellier, with the screening of God’s Spy by Todd Komarnicki. The screening will be followed by a debate in the form of a round table. While the City of Montpellier celebrates, from summer 2024 to spring 2025, the 80th anniversary of the Liberation and the end of the Second World War, this film highlights the life of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hero of the German resistance to Nazism.
Heroes, literature and cinema: quizzes, riddles and great classics
On the program, some great cinema classics: like Casablanca by Michael Curtiz or the film by Jean Renoir, The Great Illusion or The three days of the condor by Sydney Pollack. To see or re-watch in particular A very discreet heroby Jacques Audiard or A triumphby Emmanuel Courcol, which will be presented during the closing evening in partnership with the Wake-up Café association. As well as several gems of international cinema, such as At open grave by Martin Scorsese, or again The wind risese, by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki but also A herofilm by Iranian director Asghar Farhadir. The festival will also offer a program dedicated to children, with films for the whole family and adapted prices. A new location and events: In 2025, the festival will move to the Carrousel, this new venue in the Gambetta district which hosts many events. Thursday January 30, at 4 p.m., a jubilant discovery workshop Heroes and cinemabased on quizzes and puzzles and at 6 p.m., a conference-debate moderated by Rachel Reboul on Heroes, literature and cinema with extracts from the film Madame Bovaryby Claude Chabrol. This Christian film festival is organized in partnership with the City of Montpellier, ACAT, Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture, for the film Chili 1976with the Cap à l’Est film festival, for the film La Ruche and with the Wake-up Café, an association which supports people leaving prison with a view to lasting reintegration, without reoffending, for the film A triumphon the closing night on January 31 at 8 p.m. at the Rabelais Center.
>>> Complete programming and ticketing on: chretiensetcultures.fr
