ECU Film Festival 19-21 April, 2024

ECU Film Festival in Paris ECU Film Festival offers the European cinema-loving public much more than a full program of quality and riveting independent films. Every year, the festival provides a unique, inspiring and interactive experience that all attendees are encouraged to partake in. Whether it is workshops taught by industry professionals, in-depth discussions with “Official Selection” directors in the Q&As that follow every screening session or other various events such as networking events and parties - there is something for everyone to enjoy. ÉCU is committed to the promotion and projection of the very best European independent films. At the heart of ÉCU’s mission lies the belief in the power of independent cinema to transcend cultural boundaries and foster a deeper understanding of European narratives. ECU Film Festival's “Official Selection” films are original and represent the best quality, creativity and innovation within the independent film industry. This…
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English Books Paris: What’s New at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

Each month in the Book Room online, we recommend newly published books and for March we've selected some books to help with learning English and one to get you to venture out of town.

HALF AN HOUR FROM PARIS 

Londoner Annabel Simms has been circling around Paris for more than 25 years. Her first book An Hour from Paris came out in 2002 followed by A Half Hour in 2018 Just recently a revised version of the closer in Half an hour from Paris 12 secret day trips by train was republished. There’s a lot to enjoy just outside the city where there are fewer crowds and more nature plus a chance to stretch your legs on a walk. A Half Hour was Fully revised and updated in 2023. Written with humor and flare for the unusual and authentic, Annabel shares her delight in the little-known treasures of the Ile de France. Half an Hour from Paris presents 12 destinations which are easy to reach from central Paris. Each destination is with a carefully planned walk,…

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Driving in France: what you need to know

Driving in France: what you need to know This article covers driving in France: paperwork, insurance, and how to obtain it. Buying a car. In case of accident. Items you are required to have in the car. If you are British, you may want to follow this link for regulations post-Brexit. DRIVER'S LICENSE: Generally speaking (because there are of course exceptions, this IS France) if you are in France for over a year and your driver's license is not European, French law requires you to have valid French driving papers for driving in France. This one year period starts on the date of your first carte de séjour. Etudiant status is one of the exceptions; as a student you can drive with your foreign license for the duration of your studies. Some US states and other countries allow an exchange of licenses, other states and countries do not and you'll be required to pass the French exam to obtain the French license. Keep in mind an exchange must be done within the one year grace …
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The history of Valentine’s Day

Valentine's Day - When Cupid’s bow is fired… As far back as the early fourth century B.C., the Romans had celebrated an annual rite of passage for young men in honor of the god Lupercus. The names of willing young women were placed in a box and drawn at random by the young men. From this lottery each man was matched with a woman companion to share in mutual entertainment and pleasure (often sexual). In a year’s time a new lottery was drawn with new partners.  Needless to say the early Catholic Church fathers were determined to put an end to this practice. They decided to find a « lover’s » saint who could usurp the popularity of Lupercus. They found Valentine. In Rome in A.D. 270, Valentine, Bishop of Interamna, had performed the sacrament of matrimony for lovers in secret. Valentine was violating a law issued by the mad emperor Claudius II who believed that married men made poor soldiers because they were loath to leave their families for battle. Since the Empire needed s…
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Bill & Rosa’s Book Room

What is Bill & Rosa's Book Room ? 

First of all, for us, a Book Room is a comfortable place to spend some time. Think of it as the reading lounge on the ocean liners of yore with a western bent. Our maître-mots are

Read, Write, Relax. Buy, Borrow, Donate.

Bill & Rosa's Book Room has several aspects. It is first a USED BOOK SHOP and a LENDING LIBRARY. There are many novels of all genres for sale plus non-fiction, biographies, history, some poetry, cookbooks, cats, books on Paris or France, memoirs and children's books. Most books are in English, but also in French and even a few bilingual. Prices start at just 2€.

The 500 volume lending library has four sections :

The Sylvie and Henry Noullet Library: novels mostly in English Bill and Rosa's Library of the American West includes no…
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Recycle, Please don’t just throw everything in the garbage

Zero waste

There's a Zero waste boutique in Paris, 3 rue Charles Nodier 75018, which proposes ateliers, information, products and ideas for moving your day to day towards zero waste. The association Zero waste France which runs the boutique has all kinds of different campaigns to reduce waste most of them are initiatives to not use containers or distribute flyers in the first place. The association is also a great place to volunteer or make monetary a contribution.

But sometimes we have waste, we have to get rid of things no longer useful to us. So here's some ideas as to how to clean up and clean out by sending things you are don't with to either proper disposal facilities or recycle and pass them on to others who just might find your garage to be just what they need.

Please don’t just throw everything in the garbage - recycle

Some items need a few minutes reflection for proper waster disposal and to recycle. For example according…

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Why is it called? Part 4: Clothing Etymology

Why is it called...? Part 4: Clothing Etymology Have you ever asked yourself why something is called by a particular name? Why are bérets called that? How do clothes get named? There is often a story. Here is a short list of some clothing articles and how they got their names, etymology. We invite readers to add their own favorites or ask about other clothes for which they would like to know the origin in the comments. We'll try to find the answer. Charentaises A charentaise is a general French word for slipper. It refers however to a specific pantoufle usually plaid which came from the area near Angoulême in the Charente region of France about 300 years ago. Hence the Etymology comes from the place. The area had many paper mills. At the time paper was made from rags and leftover felt pieces from the paper making were used to line wooden shoes, making them warmer and softer. A bit later a shoemaker from the town of La Rochefoucaud in the Charente had the idea to add a r…
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Paris Quotes (France, La Seine …)

Paris Quotes (France, La Seine too) To be Parisian is not to have been born in Paris, but to be reborn there. — Sacha Guitry ... here's what Paris is: it is a giant reference work, a city which you can consult like an encyclopaedia: whatever page you open gives you a complete list of information that is richer than that offered by any other city. Take the shops... in Paris there are cheese shops where hundreds of cheeses, all of them different, are displayed, each labelled with its own name, cheeses covered in ash, cheeses covered in walnuts: a kind of museum or Louvre of cheese... Above all this is a triumph of the spirit of classification and nomenclature. So if tomorrow I start writing about cheese, I can go out and consult Paris like an enormous cheese encyclopaedia. -- Italo Calvino in Hermit in Paris Two days and three endless nights later we arrived in Paris... Paris looked much bigger than Bordeaux, but much uglier. The bread tasted flat. Everything, even the sun…
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Learn French! Bear! Espèces d’ours!

Bear! Espèces d'ours! After being charged by an adult male grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park and shouting "Bear!" John and Lisa (read the Yellowstone press release here and listen to John tell the story here) were amused to return to Paris to find an exhibition entitled The World of Bears or  Espèces d'ours! at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. So they trotted right over to see what the museum had to say about bears. It turns out there are 8 species of bears in the world. The grizzly bear John and Lisa encountered, called Ursus arctos horribilis in scientific nomenclature, is a subspecies of the brown bear. It is also less commonly known as the silvertip bear. Scientists generally do not use the name grizzly bear but call it the North American brown bear to distinguish it from the European or Asian brown bear. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark called it "grisley". They were notoriously bad spellers and perhaps meant grizzly in reference to lighter tips …
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