French Film Club "La Danse" by Frederick Wiseman

Monday 26 April at 8pm
Talk 15minutes before the screening

At the IFI (8 Eustace street, Dublin 2)

Ticket on sale at the box office
€7 AF members / €9.50 Non-members

From the talent and application of individual dancers and choreographers to the infrastructure of a venerable Parisian institution, La Danse, The Paris Opera Ballet is an expansive portrait that surveys the totality of presenting world-class ballet to an adoring public.

For the past four decades, Fred Wiseman, the dean of American documentarists, has specialised in allowing the audience the status of invisible observer watching the process of others going about their lives, and here as usual he forgoes captioning and direct-to-camera interviews to give reality to us straight up. The result is compellingly immersive, detailing the day-to-day micro-crises inevitably shaping the fortunes of any large ballet company, yet also encouraging our appreciation of the sheer toil involved in honing physical grace to a fine point of finesse.

The screening of the film will be preceded by a brief introduction by a representative from the Dublin Dance Festival.