Pierre Falardeau’s 15 Fevrier 1839 is this year’s opening film for Toronto’s Cinefranco film festival.

Now in its fourth year, the festival is a four-day celebration of francophone films from around the world, running March 29 to April 1 at the Cumberland 4 theatre.

Of the 22 features selected this year, five are Canadian. In addition to 15 Fevrier, the festival will screen Gabriel Pelletier’s La Vie Apres L’amour (winner of Le Billet d’Or) and three films from the recently wrapped Rendez-vous du cinema in Montreal: Hochelaga by Michel Jette; L’invention de L’amour by Claude Demers and La Bautille by Alain Desrocher.

Among the four-pack of selected shorts, Le P’tit Varius by Alain Jacques is the only Canadian.

"It is very satisfying that in this, Canada’s most multicultural city, support for French-language film is so strong," says Marcelle Lean, the festival’s executive director. "Over the years, Cinefranco’s audience has remained 40% francophone, 40% anglophone, with 20% identifying a third language as its mother tongue."

With the inclusion of such international films as Le Libertin (Fanny Ardant, Josiane Balasko), Maybe (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Vincent Perez’s Marry Me, the most dominant theme among this year’s film selections is the human condition, treated from a decidedly light perspective. *

-www.cinefranco.com