Ciné Club - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

The AFM Ciné Club is back with Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964).

Love, Compromise, and the Ache of 'What Could Have Been': Romantic Idealism and the French Film Fantasy of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) seduces us with colourful sets, an all-singing cast, and the promise of youth in the form of the then nineteen-year-old Catherine Deneuve. Yet, underneath the shimmering surface lies a quietly devastating meditation on love versus reality. Geneviève and Guy’s teenage passion collides with war, distance, and the slow erosion of promises. Is this a tragedy, or simply an honest portrayal of youthful romance? How does the story reflect the French society of the time? Join us as we discuss the joys and sorrows of this extraordinary film and its undeniable legacy as one of the finest works of French cinema.

Join us for a post-screening discussion with Andrew McGregor, Associate Professor of French (Cinema) at the University of Melbourne and Dr Mark Nicholls, Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Andrew McGregor is Associate Professor of French Cinema Studies, Chair of the Languages Discipline, and Deputy Head of the School of Languages and Linguistics in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Andrew is President of the Australian Society for French Studies. Prior to completing his PhD in French Studies at Melbourne, he obtained a Masters in Cinema Studies from the University of Paris I - Panthon-Sorbonne, and received a film research accreditation from the President of the Cannes International Film Festival. Andrew is the founding co-editor of the Film Cultures series for Peter Lang Academic Publishing, Oxford. He is the author of Film Criticism as Cultural Fantasy: The Perpetual French Discovery of Australian Cinema (Peter Lang, 2010). The book has been reviewed in French Studies and Film Studies journals internationally, with the prestigious US journal Film Quarterly describing it as a pioneering work. Andrew is currently writing a book on Tony Gatlif for publication in the French Film Directors series by Manchester University Press. He lectures and publishes on French, European and World Cinema, and particularly on the representation and interpretation of cultural identities in film.

Dr Mark Nicholls is Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne where he has taught film since 1993. He is the author of The Ballet Russes (1908-1913) on Stage and Screen (2026), Lost Objects of Desire: The Performances of Jeremy Irons (2012), Scorsese's Men: Melancholia and the Mob (2004) and recent articles on Italian Cinema and The Ballets Russes. He is co-editor of the special edition of the journal Spunti e Ricerche, Il Gattopardo: Sicily, Italy and the Supernational Cultural Imaginary (2019/21). Mark is a film journalist and worked for many years on ABC Radio and for The Age newspaper, for which he wrote a weekly film column between 2007 and 2009. Since 2019 Mark has been curator and presenter of the Italian Cinema Forum at CO.AS.IT. (Italian Assistance Association). He has an extensive list of credits as a playwright, composer, actor, producer and director. Ten of his plays are published together as Unconventional Women (Prahran Press, 2019). He is currently writing on Vittorio De Sica's film, The Garden of the Finzi Contini (1970) and researching on the topic of "Luchino Visconti and Company 1950-1963".