France Honors Mahen Bonetti, Norman Manea, and Jackie Raynal
Bonetti, Manea and Raynal Awarded Order of Arts and Letters
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Jackie Raynal, Norman Manea and Mahen Bonetti, having received France's Order of Arts and Letters at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy on April 12.
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New York
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On Monday,
April 12,
Kareen
Rispal,
Cultural
Counselor of
the French
Embassy,
confered
upon
Mahen
Bonetti,
Norman
Manea,
and
Jackie
Raynal
the Order
of Arts and
Letters. Mahen
Bonetti
is the
founder and
executive
director of
African
Film
Festival
(AFF), a
non-profit
arts
organization
founded in
1990 to
showcase the
works of
African
filmmakers
in the
United
States.
Every year,
AFF
collaborates
with the
Film Society
of Lincoln
Center and
BAMcinématek
to produce
the annual
New York
African Film
Festival
(which is
being held
from April 7
to May 31
this year);
the
organization
also curates
other film
programs
with U.S. and foreign
partners.
Born in
Sierra Leone,
Bonetti has
lived in the United States for the past 30 years; through the
AFF she
hopes to
harness the
power of
film to
provide a
forum for
the African
voice in the U.S.
Norman Manea's
works have
been
translated
into 20
languages,
and his
short
fiction and
essays have
appeared in
periodicals
and
collections
throughout
the world,
including
Les Temps
Modernes
and Le
Monde in
France, as
well as
The New
Republic,
The New
Yorker,
and the
Paris Review
in America.
Born in
Romania in
1936 in
a Jewish
family, he
survived the
Transnistria
concentration
camp only to
flee
communist
persecution
in the late
eighties,
seeking
refuge in
America in 1988. Originally trained
as an
engineer, he
began
writing in
1974 and
never looked
back.
American
novelist
Philip Roth
talks of
�his bookish
thoughtfulness,
his
intellectual
subtlety and
his
affection
for
complexity,
his quiet
wit. He is
currently
the Francis
Flournoy
Professor in
European
Studies and
Culture and
Writer in
Residence at
Bard
College.
Jackie
Raynal
is an
accomplished
film editor
and
director,
and was the
film curator
at the now
legendary Bleecker Street and Carnegie Hall cinemas
from 1975 to
1992.
Originally
from Montpellier, France, she studied at the Sorbonne
and became
an assistant
editor for
films such
as Jean
Renoir�s
The Elusive
Corporal.
She went on
to edit
several
films,
including
many by Eric
Rohmer (La
Boulangère
de Monceau,
La Carrière
de Suzanne,
Nadja à
Paris
and La
Collectionneuse).
She made her
directorial
debut in
1965, with
two
prize-winning
films that
particularly
stand out:
Deux Fois
(1969)
and New
York Story
(1981). She
is currently
working on
Gougnette,
an homage to
her parents
who fought
in the
French
resistance
during World
War II.
The
Ordre des
Arts et des
Lettres
(Order of
Arts and
Letters) was
created in
1957 to
recognize
eminent
artists and
writers,
as well as
individuals
who have
contributed
to the
recognition
of French
culture in
the world.
The Order is
given out
twice
annually to
only a few
hundred
people
worldwide.
Among the
Americans
who have
received
this award
are Paul
Auster,
Ornette
Coleman,
Agnes Gund,
Marilyn
Horne, Jim
Jarmusch,
Richard
Meier,
Robert
Paxton,
Robert
Redford,
Meryl Streep
and
Uma Thurman. |
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