Cinema is one of the most neglected subjects at the Calcutta Book Fair and perhaps that?s why this year, Alliance Francaise de Calcutta, the French Embassy in India and Nandan have organised a mini film festival for the fair. This three-day event will feature repeat screenings of some of the most talked-about French films from different time periods.

The festival took off on Friday with Claude Chabrol?s classic Madame Bovary about the ill-fated heroine of Gustave Flaubert?s celebrated French novel. The film was remade in Hindi by Ketan Mehta as Maya Memsaab, with Deepa Sahi as the dissatisfied wife of the country doctor, longing to be a part of the high society.

On Saturday, the main attraction is Louis Malle?s 1963 film Le Feu Follet about an alcoholic who commits suicide after having undergone disintoxication. Starring Maurice Ronet and Jeanne Moreau, the film is a desperate search for the self and explores the existential dead end into which the character wanders. It will be shown at Nandan I at 6 pm.

Monday, the last day of the festival, is a toss-up between Fran?ois Dupeyron?s Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (picture top)and Marguerite Duras? India Song (picture below).

The Dupeyron film, released in 2003, has received the Prize for Best Adaptation in cinema of literary work at Francfort Book Fair in 2004. Starring Omar Sharif, the film is set in 1960s Paris and is about Momo, a 13-year-old boy. Through his one friend, Ibrahim, the Arab grocer and philosopher, Momo discovers life.

The 1975 film India Song is about Anne-Marie Stretter, who is no longer alive. Wife of a French ambassador to India, she was buried in Calcutta. Ann-Marie had many lovers and one love with whom she had tried to go all the way to death itself. First written for the stage, India Song was adapted for radio in 1971, published in 1973 and filmed in 1974-75.

Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran will be shown at Nandan I at 6 pm and India Song at Nandan II, 6.30 pm.