La Culture Oui, But Why?

French Writer Marc Levy was invited to the Lycee Francais de New York as part of an artist-in-residence project. He spent a week with the 8th graders on the Power of Imagination. Marc Lévy is a French novelist whose books have been translated into over forty languages. He is the most widely read French author in the world. New Yorker at heart, Marc Levy chooses the Big Apple as the backdrop of many of his novels. He talks about his beginnings and writing in a bilingual world.

Laura Nsafou is our guest for this episode. Also known as Mrs Roots, she is a French blogger and author and artist in residence at the Lycee Francais de New York. Founder of the Afrolab workshop, Laura is the author of the eleven-times reprinted picture book Comme un million de papillons noirs (Like A Million Black Butterflies) published at Editions Cambourakis, A mains nues (Editions Synapse), Le chemin de Jada (Jada's Journey, Cambourakis), Fadya et le chant de la rivière (Lunii), La demeure du ciel (Cambourakis). In September 2021 she wrote her first Yound Adult novel NOS JOURS BRÛLÉS (éditions Albin Michel). The second volume of this saga is due very soon. She is also working on a bande dessinée or graphic novel. In February 2022, French Vogue listed her among "the most promising authors of the moment". In France, Laura Nsafou embodies a whole new generation of authors, As a committed Afro-feminist, she tackles social representations, history, and culture of black women on her dedicated site: mrsroots.fr. Her motto is: “Write. So that it is no longer possible to say once again: I didn't know." In this podcast, Laura Nsafou talks about her own childhood, and her desire to write. She has been in residence at the Lycee Francais de New York with the 5th graders in the Spring of 2022. She gives some details about the writing project she has led there. Many thanks to Somi for other music. BACK

In this new episode of our bilingual podcast, as we celebrate Earth Day with climate change on our minds, we invited an alum from the Lycée Francais de New York, Charles Cohen (Class 2015) who decided to study forestry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and now works in the wilderness in Canada. He tells us about his choice, about his life among the trees far from his early youth between Paris and New York. At the Lycee Français de New York, we are organizing a panel talk on "How Important Are Forests" on April 26th - free and open to all - because we strongly believe that protecting the environment is key to the future of the young generations at the Lycee and all over the world. This podcast with Charles Cohen, hopefully will inspire young people look at their future with wide-open eyes on nature.  In French and in English With a tribute to Josephine Baker within excerpt from her 1927 recording of Blue Eyes Check online at cultural center.lfny.org

In this podcast, French editorialist, book writer, filmmaker, anti-racist and feminist activist Rokhaya Diallo talks about racism in France as well as the idea of race and her interpretation of the concept of laicité as stated by a 1905 law in France. Writing regularly for the Washington Post, Rokhaya has also been invited to join Georgetown University's gender and justice initiative as a researcher in residence.  She talks about "les hijabeuses", these young women who are fighting in France to practice sports wearing headscarves. She also compares the situation on race and gender in France and in the US.  Rokahaya is a guest at the Lycee Francais de New York for Baldwin Day, a special day to celebrate the life and legacy of novelist, essayist, and activist James Arthur Baldwin. In the podcast, Rokhaya also talks about her film La Parisienne Démystifiée that we will show at the school. Inserted Ad on Festival Première Scène by F. Yvelin and N. Roussel

The Future of Fashion In this episode, we talk about fashion and its future with Blandine Velin, Director of Insights and Innovation for a major French fashion brand in New York. As the fashion season starts, we look at how pandemics changed the sector by creating another lifestyle. Are fashion shows still relevant? And will the metaverse revolutionize our closets? We also invited Chloe, a student at the Lycee, passionate about fashion, who has prepared the questions for our guest together with other students.

Wes Anderson's movie, The French Dispatch, was filmed in Angoulême, France. In fact, Angoulême, presented as "a fictional French town in the '50s", is one of the film's main characters. The movie was released in 2021 and French composer Alexandre Desplat who created the music score for the film is one the nominees for the 2022 Golden Globes. We decided to virtually transport ourselves to Angoulême as we wanted to know how the citizens of this city located in the South West of France, in Charentes, had experienced the filming that took place from November 2018 to March 2019. We talked to David Beauvallet, Director of marketing and communication for the Pole Image Magelis who was the liaison between Wes Anderson's film crew and the city. And he tells us in French.

"Built from his own experiences, Stéphane has developed the concept of "gathering opposites.” In a French context where social cohesion is increasingly crumbling, he bridges the gaps in the community by activating two powerful levers to peaceful coexistence: dialogue across differences and our desire to help each other."( Ashoka Foundation) Artist, Film Director ( A Voix Haute), Social entrepreneur (Indigo), Stephane de Freitas has been preparing the Lycee students to the grand oral, He talks about his philosophy and gives a few tips. (In French and in English)

Mahen Bonetti, Founder and Executive Director of the African Film Festival is our special guest of La Culture Oui, But Why? and she also participates in a panel on cinema organized by the Cultural Center of the Lycee Francais de New York on November 9, 2021. Mahen Bonetti was born in 1956 in Sierra Leone to a family that has experienced the ups and downs of post-colonial politics. She talks about the festival, African cinema but also the movement of Black Lives matter and Africa

Alum from the Lycée Francais de New York and Graduate in Urban Design, Hadrien Cassan is a cultural mediator for the Jeanne Claude and Christo project of the Wrapped Arc de Triomple. He is spending half of his days under the monument welcoming the public. He tells us about the project from the inside. .

As we are commemorating the 20th anniversary of 09/11, we asked French-American Director Jules Naudet who was the first person, together with a few firefighters, to enter Tower 1 at the World Trade Center, what he remembered from that very special day. Jules and his brother Gedeon were filming a documentary on firefighters and happened to be near the Twin Towers by pure chance. The raw footage Jules was able to capture that day became a documentary in 2002. Fifteen years later, a new documentary New York 9/11 produced by CNN was released. In this podcast, Jules Naudet remembers the sounds and smells of that day. He also talks about the influence of "his" 9/11 on the rest of his career. He pays tributes to all firefighters and in particular New York City Fire Department Battalion Chief Joseph Pfeifer who saved his life, "a friend for life." Jules Naudet is an alum from the Lycee Francais de New York. Music: Maxime Boublil, Eric Laws, Lance Conrad, Bobby Cole "Trois petites notes de musique ( Yves Montand)

Born in Tunisia, Emel evokes her childhood and her musical beginnings. Singing in English and in Arabic, sometimes in French, Emel talks about identity as a language of creation. What is it to be a Francophone and belong to this French-speaking cultural world? Her latest album, still in the making, is dedicated to women and among them, the most vulnerable. " I change the story to change History and create a virtuous circle", says Emel. Emel is participating to a virtual concert organized by the Cultural Center of the Lycée Francais de New York and live on Saturday, March 20, 2021 on the Cultural Center facebook page Music credits: "Ensen Dhaif" by Emel "Everywhere we look is burning" by Emel "Fi Kolli Yawmen" by Emel "Kelmti Horra" by Emel "Je t'aime encore" ( Album D'Eux by Celine Dion) Maxime Boublil ( intro music) Special thanks to Partisan Records and Annie Ohayon.

Film Director Remi Chayé ( Up North, Calamity Jane), special guest at the Lycee and at Animation First, FIAF Animated film festival (ww.fiaf.org), talks about his works and his latest movie Calamity Jane. He talks in French about his inspiration, and the industry of animated movies in general.

French born Delphine Selles is Film Curator at the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) in New York. There she co-curates with French cinema consultant Catherine Lamairesse, Animation First, an animated film festival that runs through February. We learn that Director Remi Chayé is one of the special guests this year and that a students jury will elect their favorite movies. Delphine talks about animated movies, French cinema and the future of cinema. More info at www.fiaf.org More info at culturalcenter.lfny.org

French producer, filmmaker and writer Benoit Cohen has been living in Brooklyn since 2014. In 2019, we invited him at the Lycée Français de New York to talk about his books. The first one Yellow Cab is about his personal experience: Cohen drove a cab around the five boroughs for a few months, in the perspective of writing a screenplay about a French actress becoming a taxi driver in New York and finally wrote Yellow Cab published in the US by Pointed Leaf Press. His second book Mohammad, Ma Mère, et Moi tells the story of his mother who welcome an Afghan refugee in her home in Paris. In 2021, a graphic novel bande dessinée with drawings by Christophe Chabouté (The Park Bench, Moby Dick) is published in January in France (later on in the US). and Mohammad, Ma Mère, et Moi is soon to be a movie.

Writer Abdourahman Waberi was born in Djibouti in 1965 when Djibouti was a French colony, and his native language was somali. He came to France in 1985 to study English Litterature.  He started his career as an English teacher in Caen in Normandy while pursuing in parallel a career as a writer in French. His first collection of short stories Le pays sans ombre published in France in 1994, was translated in English in 2005 as The Land Without Shadows.  So did his novel Les Etats-Unis d'Afrique, In The United States of Africa (novel), published by University of Nebraska Press in March 2009. For that novel initially published in France in 2006, he received the prize of Best French Writing : 21st Century. French Voices 2006.  Today Waberi is also an Assistant professor at Georges Washington University where he teaches Francophone literature as well as French literature and film.  For the teachers at the Lycee Francais de New York, Professor Waberi gave a crash course on Francophone litterature, and for all of us he explains what its is to a be a francophone.

Herve Tullet Born in France, in Avranches, Herve Tullet is an artist, a performer and an author of children books. After 10 years spent in advertising, he started illustrating children books. The first one was published in 1994 and called How Daddy met Mommy. It was an instant success. Since 1994, Hervé has published over 80 books and received many awards. His books are meant for children from all ages. They can be touched, and content can be added: The reader participates to the creative process. Hervé, who sees himself as an artist and is influenced by modern art, spent 5 years in New York from 2015 to 2020. There he started developing workshops for the general public as well as interactive exhibitions. His most recent project is called the Ideal Exhibition. Through videos, he encourages participants to create their own exhibit. With Virgil de Voldère, Founder of the bilingual preschool La Petite Ecole, Hervé Tullet is in the process of developing a curriculum based on the Ideal Exhibit which will be accessible to all the schools all over the world.  Hervé is artist-in-residence at the Lycee Francais de New York with the First Graders in 2020-2021 In this podcast we meet with Hervé Tullet who is in Paris and Virgil de Voldère in New York. Music by Maxime Boublil and others.

French Senegalese artist Delphine Diallo who is based in Brooklyn talks about her work, her photography and collages. Former assistant to American artist Peter Beard, Delphine Diallo chooses to concentrate on the beauty and strength of Black women's bodies as a way to find her own identity. Established in New York since 2011, Delphine also talks about her love for the city. Delphine is one of the guests for the panel on Culture and Diversity organized by the Lycee Francais de New York Cultural Center on October 6, 2020. culturacenter.lfny.org. She is residence with the Y4 students starting in November 2020 Her website is http://www.delphinediallo.com/ Music by Maxim Boublil, Camille Berthault, Ángel Hernández, Michele Nobler

  Lucie Tiberghien is a French and American theater director and translator, based in Brooklyn, NY. In 2018, she founded Molière in the Park, the first non-profit in Brooklyn solely dedicated to bringing free theater to Prospect Park on a yearly basis.  Last June, she co-presented with French Institute Alliance Francaise, a Tartuffe online that was dubbed "Revolutionary" by the New York Times theater critic. On October 24, 2020, Lucie Tiberghien will direct the School of Wives online, s show co-presented with the French Institute Alliance Francaise She was raised just outside Geneva where at an early age she began her career as a dancer (Grand Théâtre de Genève). She then moved to Paris after high school to further her training in music and dance, then went back to school to study history and political science. After graduating from Geneva Webster University she moved to New York to pursue a career in directing. Music by Maxime Boublil, Camille Berthault, Georges Bizet, Boccherini, Stephen J Rice

Lycée Français de New York Alum Maxime Boublil is a French pop songwriter living in L.A. who has been in the industry for over six years. As a songwriter, he works with music studios affiliated with Warner and Sony as well as independent labels. HIs goal is "to put his heart into artist's songs hoping to find the perfect melody that will elevate and hopefully create the record the artist deserves." He begun his career as a sound engineer on "The Voice" Australia and started composing after that. Both French and American, Maxime is the son of librettist Alain Boublil ( Les Misérables, Miss Saigon.. ) and singer Marie Zamora. In this podcast, we hear Maxime's compositons including the original Music of La Culture Oui, But Why?, "Problems" and "All Falls Down" interpreted by Maxime himself. Follow him on Instagran @ Maximepretends.

Belgian Actor Ronald Guttman performs on August 21, 2020 at Guild Hall in East Hampton a dramatization of novel The Fall by French writer Albert Camus (1913-1960). La Culture Oui, But Why? explores the acting world of Ronald Guttman and invites screen-writer Alexis lloyd who adapted the novel to theater. The monologue will also be performed in October at the French Institute Alliance Francaise in New York. Ronald Guttman, founder and president of HIGHBROW, is also an actor, producer, and art collector. Ronald Guttman's long list of acting credits includes film, television, and theater. Mr. Guttman began his acting career in Brussels, Belgium, where he performed at The National Theatre in plays by Beckett, Schnitzler, Racine, Turgenev, and Camus, among others. He lives in New York and in Bridgehampton, NY Alexis Lloyd is a French film writer, director and producer best known for his film 30 Beats. He was Managing Director of Pathé UK. He lives in New York. Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, and journalist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957, the second-youngest recipient in history. His novel The Fall was published in 1952-1958.

The French King Francis the First sent the explorer Giovanni de Verrazano to find a road to Asia. Verrazano arrived in New York in April 16, 1524 aboard La Dauphone. He called the bay "Marguerite" after Francis the First's sister and called the land Angouleme as Francis I was also Count of Angouleme. A copy of Verrazano's report sits at the Morgan Library in a secluded room. The report was rediscovered in 1946 by a teacher from the Lycee Francais de New York, a bilingual private school in Manhattan. French movie director Marie-France Brière told this whole story in her documentary film "If New York Was Called Angouleme". In this episod, librarian Damien Renon and Director Marie-France Briere are intyerviewed

Today we are meeting French artist Beatrice Coron. She creates cut out silhouettes. Beatrice can talk at length about this art form invented in China and later came to France where Etienne de Silhouette, Minister of Finance under Louis XV, introduced the first portraits à la silhouette;   She is present these days at the The New York HIstorical Society with an exhibition called Hi Five! : Stories of the Five Boroughs until September 2020.

Born in Marseille from an Egyptian family, Lucien Zayan, spent most of his working life in theater and music, working as producer in France for famous cultural hubs like le théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris or the Festival d'art lyrique in Aix-en-Provence to name a few. He arrived in New York and landed in Brooklyn. He fell in love with the Invisible Dog, a former factory that made invisible leaches for invisible dogs, and created a cultural center with working studios for artists. With COVID, Lucien is looking at ways to help artists. In this episode we also interview Illustrator Kevin Waldron who is in residence at the Invisible Dog. The host Pascale Richard speaks in English, Lucien Zayan speaks in French and Kevin Waldron speaks in English.