Jessica Forde Movies

This unique French offering is a compilation of 30 short films focused on AIDS. The mini-films were based on over 3,000 ideas put in by French school children and were made by filmmakers on a voluntary basis. Most of the vignettes deal with heterosexuality and AIDS, but one deals with drug-usage, and one with homosexuality. It took four production houses three years to create this inspirational and informative film. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

There have been quite a few spoofs of Hollywood, and a similar number of spoofs about filmmaking in general. This is one of the few spoofs which is about film festivals and, in particular, the Taormina festival in Italy. It was shot during the 1988 festival using many of the actual participants in the festival as actors and leading characters. When word of the film went round, many more wanted to participate than was originally planned, and further scenes were shot during the next year's festival. It was finally shown at the 1990 festival. Those who are not playing themselves are portraying characters who are easily recognized by those attending the festival, though these references are probably impossible for non-participants to understand. Nonetheless, the scenes showing the chaos and energetic self-promotion behind the scenes serve to leaven the heavy seriousness with which festivals promote themselves. The frequently leaden, self-important themes of many festival films are not exempt from barbs in this comedy, any more than the are the windbag philosophical utterances of the unhappy critics who must watch them. Reviewers of this film expressed considerable pleasure in observing the gusto with which the participants made fun of themselves in this unusual festival offering. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Sergio's great pal is Cena (Davide Torsello), a couple of years older, who is the leader of their gang of boys. They live in the small town of Vicenza in Northern Italy in the peaceful days of the 1930s. Though they know they are not wealthy, it is doubtful that they realize that they are poor, for their lives are full of so many adventures. When Don Gastone (Roberto Citran), a handsome, artistic new priest comes into town, he persuades Sergio (Massimo Santelia) to take part in a poetry recital. One benefit of this is that Immacolata (Adriana Asti), one of the parishioners (who is smitten with the priest), gives Sergio a new suit for the occasion. Up the street, the hooker Fedora (Jessica Forde) has just come into town from Venice, and has established her place of business not far from where Immacolata lives. So it doesn't escape Immacolata's attention that Don Gastone is passing through the neighborhood just a bit too often. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This episodic film comes from French director Eric Rohmer and is the seventh and final installment in the filmmaker's Comedies and Proverbs cycle. Reinette (Joëlle Miquel) is as innocent as a newborn babe, while Mirabelle (Jessica Forde) is as worldly and sophisticated as Reinette is not. Their country mouse/city mouse friendship begins when they share a room in Paris and endures through a quartet of whimsical experiences. Completed in 1987, Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle was distributed in the U.S. in 1989. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi