The University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) will be one of the venues of the annual La Francophonie Film Festival – Dhaka.  The festival, which will be held from March 21 to March 27, will feature 19 films from various countries that view French culture and language as an important part of their identity.  Every year, this community, founded in 1970 in Niger, promotes French as an international language.

At ULAB, two films will be exhibited on March 27 at the Auditorium. 

3:00 pm
“Le déclin de l'empire américain” (1986)
Running time: 101 minutes
Synopsis:  Four very different Montreal university teachers gather at a rambling country house to prepare a dinner. Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend) and Alain (a bachelor) discuss sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Meanwhile, their four female guests, Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a spinster), Diane (a divorcée) and Danielle (Pierre's girlfriend) are spending the time at a downtown health gym. They also discuss sex, the female body and, naturally, men. Later in the evening, they finally meet at the country house and have dinner. The discussion? Well, you can guess it... However, a ninth guest, named Mario, who used to know Diane, drops in on the group for some talk and has a surprise of his own.

5:00pm
 “Les invasions barbares” (2003)
Running time: 99 minutes.
Synopsis: In this belated sequel to “Le déclin de l'empire américain,” 50-something Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. He decides to make amends meet to his friends and family before he dies. He first tries to made peace with his ex-wife Louise, who asks their estranged son Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the entire Canadian system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while he also tries to reunite his former friends, Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude to see their old friend before he passes on.  Admission is free.

The other venue of the film festival is the Alliance Francaise, Dhanmondi.  A similar film festival will take place in Chittagong from March 28 to 30.