La Jornada: 21 cities in the country will experience the Great Franco-Mexican Festival

To celebrate two centuries of shared history and common values, from September 1 to November 30, the French government will hold the Great Franco-Mexican Festival, an extensive program of artistic, academic and scientific activities in 21 cities in the country.

Organized by the French embassy in Mexico and the French Institute of Latin America (IFAL), in collaboration with national institutions, universities, festivals and book fairs, this meeting is part of the bicentennial of diplomatic relations between both nations.

The program consists of some 200 activities structured around eight thematic axes: performing arts, exhibitions, cinema, books and publishing, French language, debates and ideas, gastronomy and professional meetings.

There will be the presence of intellectuals, artists and groups, including, in the field of literature, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the writer and screenwriter Emmanuel Carrère.

In performing arts, La Comédie-Française, les Manufactures Nationales and Chaillot-Théatre National de la Danse will participate, and in music, the ensembles Le Poème Harmonique, the Arod Quartet and the Pygmalión ensemble, specialized in baroque music, chamber music and explorations with period instruments.

There will also be numerous collaborations between artists from both nations with “the hope” of sowing a seed that transcends the anniversary and is consolidated in the years to come, said Jean François Guéganno, director of IFAL and cultural advisor to the French embassy.

The announcement of this festival took place yesterday, on French National Day, with the participation of the ambassador of that nation, Delphine Borione, as well as officials of the Mexican government, including the undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, María Teresa Mercado; the head of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal), Alejandra de la Paz, and the general director of Circuits and Festivals of the Ministry of Culture, Valeria Palomino.

The celebrations will start on September 1 at the Vasconcelos Library with the exhibition France-Mexico: 200 years of relationship and friendship. Resonances, dissonances and counterpointsa chronological journey through 52 documentary panels that – according to Phillipe Ollé-Laprune, one of its two curators – show the key moments of a bond that has much deeper roots than the formal recognition of 1826, including some of a complex nature (such as the so-called Cake War and the Second Empire, led by Maximilian of Habsburg).

Another example of great significance is The forms of energywhich will be presented at the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts, with a selection of 40 works from the Georges Pompideu National Center of Art and Culture – currently closed for renovation –, related to kinetic, optical and geometric art, with pieces from the 1920s – including an experimental film by Marcel Duchamp – to the 1980s, reported Mauricio Maillé, director of the venue.

Furthermore, as a result of an agreement between the presidents of Mexico and France, Claudia Sheinbaum and Emmanuel Macron, established in November of last year in view of this bicentennial, there will be two “cross exhibitions” around historical heritage: our country will take the Boturini Codex to the National Library of France, while the European nation will lend the Azcatitlán Codex to present it at the National Museum of Anthropology.

This celebration will be joined by the Cervantino International Festival, the Inbal, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Morelia Music and Film Festivals, among other events and institutions.