HELAS POUR MOI Galas

AFI Fest is proud to present as its Middle Gala Jean-Luc Godard’s internationally acclaimed new film, Helas Pour Mai, starring French superstar Gerard Depardieu and Laurence Masliah. Depardieu plays Simon, an ordinary man whose body is briefly inhabited by God. The film focuses on the relationship between Simon and his wile Rachel (Laurence Masliah), depicting the ettects of an appearance of the divine in ordinary contemporary lives. Praised ecstatically by critics in France and at the New York Film Festival, Helas Pour Mai has become one of the most talked about movies ot the year. Caryn James ( The New York Times) writes: “This film will be a surprise to anyone who thinks of Jean-Luc Godard as a cold and cerebral filmmaker. With Helas Pour Mai he is warm and cerebral, and more quietly provocative than he has been in years … Depardieu’s intense but restrai.ned performance provides much of the film’s heart.” Peter Tr avers (Rolling Stone) calls the film “poetic, disturbing, surprisingly spiritual and, as you’d expect from the man who’s been breaking rules since Breathless, distinctively outrageous.” Dave Kehr at The New York Daily News describes He/as Pour Mai as “one of Godard’s richest and wildest films … ravishingly beautiful and often hilarious … Godard is seldom more engaging than he is here.” (Helas Pour Mai will be opening at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Cinema on June 29 and will run through July 13.)