Films about Stuart queens are like buses — there are none for ages, then two together, just in time for the Oscars. Mary Queen of Scots and her descendant Queen Anne are both gracing our screens in radically different biopics, both diverging from history as it has traditionally been portrayed. The Favourite portrays the reign … Continue reading “Queens on Screen”
If Beale Street Could Talk, one of this year’s Oscar-nominated films has impeccable credentials: the first English-language film adapted from one of James Baldwin’s novels, it was both adapted and directed by Barry Jenkins, who won the 2017 Best Picture Oscar for Moonlight. Like Moonlight, and Baldwin’s work, it is centered on a working-class African-American … Continue reading “Love in Harlem”
The next “Talk in English” at the British Council in Paris will be on Thursday 21 February and will be on a popular topic: the British Royal Family. The talk will be given by one of the British Council’s teachers, Amy Brightling, and will cover the recent history of the Royal family, and their importance … Continue reading “All About the Royals”
In honour of the Black History Month, the Institut Franco-Américain in Rennes has two events centered around author James Baldwin, just in time for the release of the Oscar-nominated If Beale Street Could Talk. Born in 1924 in Harlem, New York, Baldwin is remembered as a novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and social critic. From 1948 … Continue reading “Black History Month in Rennes”
Green Book — winner of the 2019 Best Picture Oscar —is a road movie about friendship and race relations in the 1960s American South. The biopic is based on a real story: In 1964, Dr Don Shirley, a virtuoso classical pianist, was booked to play a series of concerts across the Deep South. Dr Shirley … Continue reading “On the Road with the Green Book”
We had so many fabulous entries to our Dorothea Lange creative writing contest that we’ve chosen 30 winners instead of 10. Here are the winning texts from collège and Seconde pupils, in alphabetical order except where we’ve regrouped texts about a single photo. Agathe, Mme Joubry’s class, Lycée Gustave Monod, Enghien les Bains (95) Damaged … Continue reading “Dorothea Lange Winners Collège and Seconde”
We had so many fabulous entries to our Dorothea Lange creative writing contest that we’ve chosen 30 winners instead of 10. Here are the winning texts from Première pupils, in alphabetical order except where we’ve regrouped texts about a single photo. (We’ve included Première LVA pupils with the Terminale winners.) Here are two of our … Continue reading “Dorothea Lange Winners Première”
We had so many fabulous entries to our Dorothea Lange creative writing contest that we’ve chosen 30 winners instead of 10. Here are the winning texts from Première LVA and Terminale pupils, in alphabetical order except where we’ve regrouped texts about a single photo. Aminata, M. Benain’s class, Lycée Gustave Monod, Enghien-les-Bains (95) Alabama, 1938, … Continue reading “Dorothea Lange Winners Première LVA and Terminale”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had quite a year. The Supreme Court Justice has been the focus of a biopic and a documentary, which has been nominated for an Oscar. At 85, and despite frail health, Bader Ginsburg seems to have reached greater influence than she ever imagined. The 85-year-old is the doyenne of the Supreme … Continue reading “Myth and Hero”
We asked your pupils to write a story based on one of Dorothea Lange’s photos and were overwhelmed by the response, not just in quantity but in quality, both of their imagination and their language skills. We’ve painfully whittled them down to 30 winners. We’ve divided them into age/class levels on separate pages so everyone … Continue reading “Dorothea Lange Creative Writing Winners”