The 20th Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival, an annual eight-day juried international film festival, will be held on January 22-29, 2025, and will open with the U.S. Premiere of POINTE NOIRE, a Pat Mire film, on Wednesday, January 22nd at St. Landry Cinemas in Opelousas.  Doors open at 6:00 p.m., and the film will screen at 7:00 p.m. The film screening will be followed by an Opening Night Reception at Cite des Arts in Downtown Lafayette.  
 
The film, which was shot throughout the Acadiana area, stars Roy Dupuis and Myriam Cyr and features Micheal Bienvenu and Zachary Richard.  It tells the story of filmmaker and crawfisherman Louis Leger (Roy Dupuis) and criminal defense attorney Dolores Arceneaux (Myriam Cyr), who join forces in the Cajun prairie community of Pointe Noire in an effort to save the life of Joel Richard (Michael Bienvenu), a falsely accused man on Louisiana's Death Row. What follows is a search to find out what really happened 30 years ago when two people were killed on the night of the traditional courir de Mardi Gras. Along the way, Louis and Dolores uncover a hauntingly beautiful, isolated community suffering from secrecy and deceit, yet ultimately striving to achieve its own form of folk justice.

Opening Night tickets are $20.00

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Schedule:

January 22, 2025

6:00 PM: Opening Night U.S. Premiere of POINTE NOIRE

Cinema on the Bayou presents the U.S. Premiere of POINTE NOIRE, a Pat Mire film. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. with the film screening at 7:00 p.m. at St. Landry Cinemas in Opelousas. A reception will follow at Cite Des Arts in Lafayette.

January 23, 2025

8:00 PM - 9:30 PM: Bonjour Switzerland

A crazy referendum throws Switzerland into a state of emergency. By the acceptance of the initiative “No Bilingue” there should be on only one national language: French. Many German-speaking Swiss are therefore having a crisis

January 24, 2025

8:00 PM - 9:45 PM: Hotel Silence

A man at a crossroads decides to go on a one-way trip to a country ravaged by war. But in building relationships with the survivors he meets, he rediscovers meaning in his life. Hotel Silence is an ode to resilience, an ode to life.

January 25, 2025

6:00 PM - 7:30 PM: Paris Lost And Found

Film-lover Curtis, 22, leaves his home in the Midwest USA for the first time, arriving in Paris with a single goal in mind: meet his favorite filmmaker, Pierre Bertrand, a once-great cineaste. What follows is a scavenger hunt through Paris that brings unexpected treasure.

8:00 PM - 9:45 PM: Ababooned

Set in the Faubourg à mélasse district of Montreal, Quebec, in the 1950s, the film centres on a conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and a young team of baseball players.

Michel Paquette, 12, born with polio, misses Sunday mass to read poetry at St-Amour et fille publishing house. His old companion, Archange St-Amour, who suffers from Parkinson's, needs Michel to help him type "Vive le Québec Laïque", an anti-clerical pamphlet written in the midst of Quebec's of Great Darkness era. The pamphlet scandalizes the clergy. The Church's vengeance is nothing compared to that of Michel and his friends. These young people will go to great lengths to defy the clerical order, risking everything in their quest for a secular, egalitarian Quebec.

Montreal-based Filmmaker André Forcier, along with co-screenwriter and producer Linda Pinet, will attend the film screening and participate in a Q&A afterwards. Several actors in the film are also expected to attend the screening.

January 26, 2025

4:30 PM - 6:15 PM: Home Free

Three estranged adult sisters return home for their parents anniversary to learn their father is dying; his final wish to have one last perfect weekend sends everyone into a whirlwind of buried family secrets and conflict.

"Herb and Audry have had a near perfect relationship for over fifty years. This anniversary, Herb has a few surprises in store for his three estranged daughters; Daisy, the youngest, Ivy, the middle child, and Rain, the eldest. Herb, having recently been diagnosed with a fatal brain tumour, announces that he is choosing to die on his own terms and is not seeking treatment. Not only that, but he wants to spend his remaining hours with them getting to know their inner most secrets and finding a way to clear the air between the three.

As the daughters grapple with one another and wrestle their own demons, their father’s fate slowly becomes a reality, and Audry also realizes that she’s not in a position to say goodbye either. Unfortunately what should be a weekend celebration of life, slowly turns into a darker reality as all five are forced to look at themselves in a way they never have before. After all, it’s only with our family that we can really hurt."

Avi Federgreen, a Toronto-based filmmaker and producer, will attend the film screening and participate in a Q&A afterwards.

January 27, 2025

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM: Mysterious Behaviors

For LSU's first-ever student feature film, seventeen writer-directors, each taking specific scenes, teamed with another 100+ students serving as cast and crew to tell one continuous story.

In Mysterious Behaviors, a naïve, shapeshifting extraterrestrial embeds herself on campus to research “backward but fascinating” Earthling college students. Through her mistakes and misadventures, her twisted relationships, and one very tortuous romance, she learns that humans aren’t nearly as primitive as she at first believed. Running time is 83 minutes.

A long-planned project of LSU’s Screen Arts program, six entire courses were entirely devoted to Mysterious Behaviors’ scripting, production, and editing. Faculty members, the veteran Louisiana filmmakers Glen Pitre and Paul Catalanotto, shepherded the students as producers. Program Chairs Patricia Suchy and Jason Buch oversaw the project as executive producers.

“The students burst with so much energy and so much creativity,” says Pitre, “but they all wanted to explore different themes and different genres. Forcing them to meld their individual efforts into one coherent story helped them learn the teamworking skills that are the essence of moviemaking.” The seventeen writer directors included Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asian Americans and represented all points on the geographic, economic, and gender-identification spectrums.

Date: January 22, 2025 - January 27, 2025

Location:
St. Landry Cinema Opelousas
Sponsor Acadiana Cinemas Movie Theater

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