New burlesque coming to French Film Festival!

Ambassade de France en Nouvelle-Zélande
Media Release
New burlesque is coming to the French Film Festival!

Wellington, Penthouse cinema: February 8 - 17
Auckland, Academy Cinemas & Victoria Picture Palace: February 16 - 24
Christchurch, Regent on Worcester: February 22 – March 2

The art of burlesque is revived and celebrated in On Tour, a fascinating and intoxicating movie that features in the 2011 French Film Festival.

The viewer gains an intimate glimpse into the phenomenon currently sweeping the world: the updated version of a dance genre whose roots are firmly planted in the English and American music-hall tradition.

Originally, burlesque shows were a mix of social satire, musical numbers and innuendo, and they became a staple of the American theatrical scene during the 1920s and ‘30s. Gradually, the genre dwindled to the simplest expression of on-stage nudity, becoming synonymous with striptease. Since the 1990s, the revival of burlesque, known as Neo- or New Burlesque, has drawn inspiration from these two periods, building out from the striptease element to reintroduce theatre, choreography, glamour, humour, satire and a splash of mayhem.

This insight comes in the form of a partially factual story about Joachim, a former Parisian television producer who had left everything behind - his children, friends, enemies, lovers and regrets - to start a new life in America. But Joachim returns to France with a team of New Burlesque performers! Joachim has fed them fantasies of a tour of France, of Paris!

The film, which gained international acclaim at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival where it won Best Director and the International Federation of Film Critics Award, follows their travels from port to port.

The curvaceous showgirls invent an extravagant fantasy world of warmth and hedonism, despite the constant round of impersonal hotels with their endless elevator music and the lack of money. A must see!

ENDS

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