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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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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Hints and Hindsights – FFFFFF. F to the sixth power.

Hints and Hindsights. FFFFFF. F to the sixth power.

The six Fs. Fascinating, Fun Facts and Figures about France and French.

They come in handy more often than you’d think: during lulls in parties, as intros or outros to speeches, when you need to prove to some arrogant twit that at least some foreigners know there’s a world beyond Main Street and a timeline that precedes 1776. But let’s not get too arrogant ourselves - even for the most cultivated among us, some of these are real jaw-droppers:

-> When was the last guillotining in France? No, it was not during the 1793 Reign of Terror. It took place in Marseille on September 10, 1977 (that’s nineteen seventy-seven!) to end the life of Tunisian immigrant Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of having tortured and murdered his 21-year-old his former girlfriend, Elisabeth Bousquet. (France abolished the death penalty in 1981.)…

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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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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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American author in Paris Jake Lamar

This is the second part of our interview with American author in Paris Jake Lamar, his editor calls him the most French of the Americans. Here's how he does his craft.

For part one of American author in Paris see this link

Q: Do you have a writing routine, or any quirky routines while you write?

A: Music is first and foremost. I kept my bachelor’s apartment after I met my wife. I met her in 1996, at that time I had a small studio apartment in Montmartre, after we moved in together I kept that apartment as my office. I have a separate place where I work. We live in the 18th arrondissement together, but my office is about 5-7 minutes away. When I’m there, I’m in my sacred work space. I usually start work in the afternoon. I haven’t been able to have a regular writing pattern for years. Back in the 90s, I had a generous grant and back then, writers could live from publisher’s advances, but those days are over. During my fi…

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