In a press conference yesterday the San Francisco Film Society announced the complete lineup for the 58th annual San Francisco International Film Festival, running from April 23rd – May 7th. Festival Executive Director Noah Cowan led the presentation, emphasizing SFFS’s mission to champion films and filmmakers from around the globe.

“I think this festival doesn’t get as much credit as it’s due as being among the most significant champions of emerging filmmakers from around the globe,” said Cowan at the press conference. “There’s a lot of focus right now in the festival world on American independent cinema. There’s lots of great stuff going on here, but sometimes it happens to neglect the quite extraordinary artists coming from other parts of the globe.”

Emblematic of the festival’s initiative to spotlight films on a global scale is its “Global Visions” section, which boasts an array of narrative and documentary films from Japan (Wonderful World End), Brazil (The Second Mother), Germany (Stations of the Cross), China (Red Amnesia), the United Kingdom (Luna), South Korea (A Hard Day), France (Fidelio: Alice’s Odyssey), New Zealand (The Dark Horse), and many more countries with exciting, emerging filmmakers and films worthy of our undivided attention. Also celebrating global storytelling are the Golden Gate Award Competitions, in which will award films from around the world nearly $40,000 across 14 awards categories.

The festival’s “Marquee Presentations” section takes a look at some buzzy titles from the festival circuit. Highlights include Eden, Mia Hansen-Løve’s French DJ drama starring Greta Gerwig and Brady Corbet; Best of Enemies, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s doc about Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.’s legendary 1968 televised debates; Results, Andrew Bujalski’s awkward comedy starring Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce as personal trainers; Francois Ozon‘s latest drama, The New Girlfriend; and What Happened, Miss Simone?, Liz Garbus’ piercing doc about legendary vocalist Nina Simone.

The festival will open with lauded documentarian Alex Gibney‘s Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, which should be a perfect kick-off for the Bay Area audience. The End of the Tour, James Ponsoldt’s follow-up to The Spectacular Now, is the fest’s Centerpiece presentation, while Michael Almereyda’s biopic Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard as scientist Stanley Milgram, will be the Closing Night Film.

Late additions to the festival lineup are still rolling in, but three additions confirmed are Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Sundance darling Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Patrick Brice’s uncomfortable comedy The Overnight, and Helen Hunt’s Ride.

Special awards will be handed out to two of the industry’s most enduring luminaries. Guillermo del Toro will be in attendance to receive the Irving M. Levin Directing Award, and Richard Gere will be on-hand to receive the Peter J. Owens Award. Also receiving awards are documentarian Kim Longinotto and film translator Lenny Borger.

For the complete lineup, visit www.sffs.org

If there’s anything we’ve learned from François Ozon‘s past work it’s this: The man is unafraid to explore boundaries of sexuality. And he does it extremely well (see: Young & Beautiful, 8 Women, In the House, Swimming Pool). While his latest film The New Girlfriend may not be his best exploration in this area, we certainly enjoyed the effort from him, as well has the daring performance from lead actor Romain Duris, who makes this role his best to date.

The opening montages contain so much detail yet such brevity that only a few filmmakers such as Ozon can pull off. During the opening credits a woman is shown in her wedding dress before slowly revealed that she’s lying in a casket. As close ones mourn the loss of Laura, her best friend Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) makes a speech about how they first met. Set to a somber duo of piano and violin, flashbacks show how their friendship blossomed from grade school and how they eventually met their future husbands. Though after Laura gave birth to her child she tragically passed away, leaving behind her child and her husband David (Duris). This all happens within about 5 minutes and it’s easily the best edited segment of the entire film.

Claire has a hard time dealing with the fact that her best friend is no longer with her, but holds up her promise of looking after David and the newborn. One day as Claire is checking to see how the two are handling Laura’s passing, she discovers one of David’s most secret pleasures–dressing up as a woman. David confesses to this desire, but also points out that the baby misses a feminine presence.

Some time passes before Claire can fully process and accept David’s eagerness to dress as a woman. During that same time David finally realizes that the baby was more of an excuse and that he actually wants to become a woman. So he develops a whole new personality when he puts on the wig and dress and prefers to go by the name Virginia. Because Claire is the only one who knows about this secret and the only one he trusts, the two end up spending a great deal of time together, forming a stronger bond than they ever had before.

Most of the action in The New Girlfriend happens early on, making the middle section feel lengthy until finally some late film developments add a little excitement back. Ozon mixes in some humor here and there to help lighten things up, but ultimately it’s the actors that make us keep watching. Duris is stellar putting on a two-for-one show playing both a male and female character who struggle with finding themselves. Demoustier is also excellent playing an equally confused character the audience can sympathize with.

But the performances and the astute filmmaking alone won’t be enough to win over audiences. And even if Ozon isn’t the type of director who aims to please the masses, The New Girlfriend stalls just enough for it to fall short of something great.

Following the well-received In The House, François Ozon returns with yet another voyeuristic character study with Jeune & Jolie (French translation: Young and Beautiful). Over the course of four weather seasons, the film follows a sexually driven adolescent striving to discover herself while pushing boundaries that society sets in front of her. This is a brave role for Marine Vacth to take as her first lead because of how much time the camera spends examining her body in various states of dress, though her gorgeous form and breakout performance do not go unnoticed. Given the subject matter, Jeune & Jolie is unsurprisingly seductive, yet unexpectedly understated.

During a summer vacation in the South of France with her family, an attractive teenager Isabelle (Marine Vacth) loses her virginity to a German boy she recently met. Even though the backdrop for her first time is probably more romantic than yours, a warm summer night on a secluded beach, she finds the whole experience less exhilarating than she was expecting. Isabelle forms no emotional attachment to him in the least bit, perhaps offering some important foresight for what happens next.

A few months later it is Autumn and Isabelle is seen in professional attire walking through the city of Paris, presumably on her way to a business meeting. And technically she is, just not the kind of business meeting that immediately come to mind. Without justification, Isabelle works as a high-class prostitute, receiving new clients from her online profile on an escort website. Because she refrains from displaying any emotion and keeps most of her thoughts to herself, it is hard to understand why she choose to be a prostitute; it does not appear to be for money, pleasure, or being forced into it. Instead of attempting to validate her actions, the film wisely chooses to focus more on the repercussions of what transpired. The explanation offered is a logical one— what you do at age 17 rarely ever makes sense.

That concept is reinforced when Isabelle and her classmates discuss Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “Romance” for a class. As the class discusses the meaning behind the poem that starts off with, “You’re never serious at 17,” they consequently describe the theme of Jeune & Jolie. Although this scene does not really fit in with the rest of the film as students are shown speaking directly to the camera, the film does make sure its message gets across to the viewer.

There is a well-positioned scene near the end that wonderfully illustrates Isabelle progression of self-discovery. At a party where she is finally surrounded by people her own age, she witnesses the immaturity of her peers doing drugs, drinking irresponsibly, and engaging in sexual acts. The pulsating beats of Crystal Castles’ “Baptism” is a perfect song as she walks through the strobe-lit crowd with a sense of confidence. For the first time she trusts herself as she displays self-restraint from the temptations of her surroundings.

For a film that does not shy away from exposing an impossibly beautiful woman having explicit sex numerous of times, it is almost hard to believe that the film’s greatest strength is its subtly. For example, the subtle reaction of the stepfather seeing Isabelle naked and the provoked implication between them when she casually states how he reminds her of one of the clients she slept with. The majority of Jeune & Jolie is detached and voyeuristic, observing its characters from a safe distance without getting know what exactly the characters are thinking. First and foremost, Jeune & Jolie is all about being 17 again; rebelling against your parents, exploring one’s sexuality, and acting without consequences.

Jeune & Jolie trailer