La Venue de l’avenir (Colours of Time) contrasts the digital age with belle époque Paris, September 17 at Alliance Française

Visions Ouest screens a lighthearted Cannes entry that looks at family, connection, and fine art, bouncing between 1895 and 2025

Visions Ouest Productions presents La Venue de l’avenir, with English subtitles, at Alliance Française Vancouver on September 17 at 7 pm

CÉDRIC KLAPISCH’S Cannes entry La Venue de l’avenir (Colours of Time) begins squarely in 2025 Paris, with a social-media fashion shoot in front of Claude Monet’s famed water-lily murals. The influencer-model doesn’t think her dress matches the murals, so she asks her young content-creator photographer Seb (Abraham Wapler) to just digitally alter the colours of the Impressionist masterpiece.

Welcome to the lighthearted world of Klapisch, who will go on to contrast the digital age’s cavalier attitude toward art with that of the gorgeous, belle époque Paris of 1895.

He does that via Seb, who is brought together with an eclectic group of strangers—beekeeper Guy (Vincent Macaigne), tightly wound engineer Céline (Julia Piaton), and French teacher Abdel (Zinedine Soualem)—when the crumbling estate of a distant ancestor comes up for redevelopment. (They literally need a chainsaw to cut into the country house, it’s so overgrown.)

It turns out the foursome share a common female ancestor, and from her faded photo on the wall we start to switch over to her story: Adèle (a magnetic Suzanne Lindon) is a young woman from the country who heads to the City of Light on a quest to learn more about her who her mother and father were, running into some of the late 1800s’ iconic artists along the way. Her journey parallels Seb’s, as he searches for his own family.

If all this sounds serious, it’s not: Klapisch brings a whimsical, feather-light touch to his double storyline, poking enormous fun at the smartphone-glued present and revelling in the sumptuous settings of belle époque Paris.

Gently and comedically, Klapisch invites us to put down our iPhones and consider the loss of family and human connection, not to mention our appreciation of art.

Featured

Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

Articles

Indigenous science-fiction film Slash/Back screens at the Shadbolt Centre, March 27

When an alien invasion threatens a remote town in Nunavut, three teenage girls must save the day

$At Vancouver Greek Film Festival, visual innovation throws light on social fracture$

At Vancouver Greek Film Festival, visual innovation throws light on social fracture

In series at The Cinematheque, vintage home-movie glow of Kyuka: Before Summer’s End and hallucinatory shades of Harvest reveal tension and crisis beneath domestic and communal surfaces

Film review: Moi qui t’aimais explores troubled passion between star couple Signoret and Montand

Diane Kurys’s gossipy, subtly performed biopic portrays the last years of a legendary relationship rife with destructive compulsions

Vancouver filmmaker Emma Higgins and actor Kate Hallett upend teen horror in Sweetness

Drawing major buzz for the way it plays with genre, the story of a misguided superfan boasts maximalist visual touches, hits of dark humour, and a considerable amount of heart

A Cree Approach profiles groundbreaking language keeper, March 5 to 8 at VIFF Centre

Vancouver-based Tristin Greyeyes finds inspiration in her grandmother’s story in documentary at GEMFest

Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival scales peaks and paraglides down, February 27 to March 11

Views and feats to inspire, from a Women Mountaineers program at The Cinematheque to the Everest tales of adventure filmmaker Elia Saikaly

Hair of the Bear searches out psychological thrills in a lethal landscape

At the Rendez-Vous French Film Festival, filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau and star Malia Baker confront anxiety and mortality in the deep freeze of the Prairies

B.C.-made Foreigner and Blue Heron among winners at Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards

Keeper, Tuner, and Forward join Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie in prizes for Canada’s top movies of the year

Film reviews: Thrillers to sci-fi, Rendez-Vous French Film Festival explores genre

Gourou, Dalloway, and a flick inspired by Liliane Bettencourt of the L'Oréal dynasty help launch 32nd annual fest

Sundar Prize Film Festival announces 2026 lineup highlighting Canadian-made titles

Offerings span basketball documentary Saints and Warriors, identity-focused short “One Day This Kid”, and beyond

Emergence: Women in the Storm looks at B.C. communities rebuilding from climate disaster, to March 2

At VIFF Centre, new Velcrow Ripper and Nova Ami documentary finds women leading residents out of wildfire and flood catastrophes, in Lytton, Yarrow, and beyond

VIFF Centre continues screening this year's Oscar-nominated films to March 14

Offerings include features Sirât and Mr. Nobody Against Putin, plus programs for Live Action, Animated, and Documentary shorts

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie time travels to absurd new heights, at the Park Theatre February 13 to 26

Matt Johnson is back with a chaotic, unabashedly Canadian followup to the cult web series

Adopted as a child, filmmaker travels back to Haitian birthplace in Through Her Eyes (À travers tes yeux), February 11

Visions Ouest and Alliance Française present poignant documentary about a woman retracing her roots to a vibrant but deeply troubled country

You’re the Top delivers a “de-lovely” Valentine’s date with Cole Porter

Classic film scholar Michael van den Bos hosts evening that mixes vintage film clips with the jazz sounds of the Laura Crema Sextet

Vancouver arts groups mark Black History Month with film screenings, live music, and more

Artists like Dee Daniels, Brandon Thornhill, and Krystle Dos Santos are performing around the city this February

Ahead of the Family Forward Festival, Ruby Chopstix praises their mom’s unconditional support

In a short documentary, the Vietnamese Canadian queen reflects on becoming the country’s first drag artist-in-residence

All That's Left of You tracks a Palestinian family's intergenerational pain, at VIFF Centre to February 12

Oscar-shortlisted film takes a sweeping, humanistic look at the toll of decades of violence

The Cinematheque spotlights the films of Naruse Mikio with Short Is the Life of a Flower, to February 21

Retrospective closes with the Japanese director’s melancholic final picture, Scattered Clouds

Les Furies rolls out the fun in story of small-town derby team, January 28

Visions Ouest screens raucous tale of women ousted from their Quebec rink and ready for revenge, at Alliance Française

You're the Top! brings the songs of Cole Porter to the Anvil Theatre, February 14

Event hosted by Michael van den Bos features Hollywood film projections and live music by the Laura Crema Sextet

Wrong Husband transports audiences to an ancient Far North, to January 18 at The Cinematheque

Zacharias Kunuk’s latest epic tells a meditative, mystical story of two young lovers separated by fate

The Choral fills story of First World War England with music, opening January 9

Ralph Fiennes plays a choir director in 1916, tasked with performing Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius

Stir Cheat Sheet: 3 movies to catch at the New Spanish Cinema festival, January 9 to 14

A historical adventure about Cervantes and documentaries about a flamenco guitarist and a matador are among the must-sees at the expanded event at the VIFF Centre

Rowdy film captures Quebec’s hugely popular Les Cowboys Fringants in concert, January 8

Screening at Alliance Française and co-presented by Visions Ouest, the documentary of the folk-rockers’ rip-roaring 2023 show was shot less than a year before lead singer’s death

Film review: Resurrection's dream scenarios pay dazzling tribute to a century of motion pictures

At the Cinematheque, Bi Gan creates five chapters, told in vastly different visual styles—from silent-film Expressionism to shadowy noir to neon-lit contemporary

La Venue de l’avenir (Colours of Time) takes a lighthearted trip back to 1895 Paris, at VIFF Centre to January 5

Four relatives converge on an old house, discovering the story of an ancestor who journeyed to the City of Light during the Impressionist era

The Nutcracker at Wethersfield follows New York City Ballet to a wintry estate, to December 28 at VIFF Centre

The Leading Ladies bring to life Duke Ellington’s swingy twist on Tchaikovsky score at December 14 screening

At The Cinematheque, David Lynch retrospective In Dreams delves into Hollywood’s dark side

Legendary director’s groundbreaking movies and TV work create a visual language that reflects on some of film history’s most sinister figures—and mushroom clouds

Film reviews: Mile End Kicks to Influencers, quick takes from Whistler Film Festival

Chandler Levack’s love letter to Montreal and her early 20s offers a new kind of female heroine; Kurtis David Harder unveils a super-energetic sequel; and Wədzįh Nəne’ (Caribou Country) takes viewers to B.C.’s snow-dusted northern reaches