The annual French Spring Festival (FSF) returns in 2022! Organised by the Embassy of France and the network of Alliance Française in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the FSF is a multi-disciplinary festival fostering artistic links between France, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives since 2012. For its 10th anniversary, FSF 2022 will host a multitude of events including exhibitions, concerts, screenings, and discussions that engage with the question of storytelling by exploring the narratives French and Sri Lankan artistes and thinkers convey through various mediums. Catch these events from the French Spring Festival!

Till July 16th “Survival of the fragile”   
Exhibition by: Muvindu Binoy 
Muvindu Binoy is a multidisciplinary artiste whose practice is focused predominantly on digital collage and film. Completed during Muvindu Binoy’s artiste residency in Paris with the Cité Internationale des Arts in 2021 and running alongside the French Embassy’s Annual Spring Festival, Survival of the Fragile includes twenty-six digital collage pieces. 
Location: Saskia Fernando Gallery

June 27nd – July 12th “Retrouver Ganesh”  
Exhibition by: Adrien Houillère 
Adrien Houillère is a comic book author. In 2018, he met the French-Sri Lankan choreographer, Sarath Amarasingam. In 2021, he publishes Retrouver Ganesh, an intimate graphic novel resulting from this meeting and the discovery of the choreographer's work. Retrouver Ganesh is a story of meetings. That of Adrien, comic book author, and Vimal Amarasingam, choreographer. That of several cultures that form identities. It is the story of two artistes who doubt, of two men who wonder about their path, about the stories they tell, about what unites us in a world of differences. Rarely has dance been so well drawn. 
Location: Alliance française de Colombo

July 01st - 03rd “A Museum (Theatre)”
Participatory performance by: Clyde Chabot  
French performance artiste Clyde Chabot has written a dozen plays including SICILIA & TUNISIA and is also a director and performer with La Communauté inavouable, which is 30 years old in 2022 and develops its projects in France and internationally. Known for her participatory performances which often suggest to the spectators a position of accomplices, witnesses, guests, or actors, Chabot joins FSF with A Museum (Theatre), a participatory multilingual installation inspired by Hamletmachine by German director Heiner Müller and directed by the French Theatre company. 
Location: Peradeniya University, Kandy  

July 04th “Josep”    
Screening by: Aurel

Synopsis: In February 1939, following the Spanish Civil War, the Republicans did everything they could to flee Franco's dictatorship and find refuge in France. However, the French government set up camps that limited the refugees' access to food and water. In one of these camps, two men form a close friendship. One is a gendarme, the other is Josep Bartolí, an anti-Franco illustrator. 
Time & Location: 7.30pm | Regal Cinema, Dematagoda

July 05Th“Recounting histories in the Indian Ocean”
Online Discussion with ; Françoise Vergès and Sujit Sivasundaram.  
Join French historian and activist Françoise Vergès and Professor of World History Sujit Sivasundaram as they hold a conference on controversial histories and historiography in the Indian Ocean. Françoise Vergès is a published political scientist and feminist decolonial activist whose work explores feminism, coloniality, colonial slavery, and decolonisation of museums. Sujit Sivasundaram is a Professor of World History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow in History at Gonville and Caius College. Professor Sivasundaram has published widely on environmental history, cultural history, imperial history, the history of race, and the history of islands and maritime societies in the global South.
Time & Location: 5pm | Online  

July 06th -12th “Dance Lab”
Workshop by: Paul Upali  
Sri Lankan-born French dancer Paul Upali Gouëllo is a state-qualified teacher of contemporary dance. Having started dance at the age of 6, Paul Upali trained technically and professionally at the International Jazz Dance School of Paris and at a contemporary dance school to learn modern dance, contemporary, and ballet. He joins FSF 2022 to conduct a series of dance workshops. 
Location: Alliance française de Colombo | Danceworld School

July 10th “Music at De Saram”
Concert by: Pauline Drand 
Parisian singer-songwriter and musician, Pauline Drand’s music is driven by a timeless voice and a sharp poetic instinct. She is currently working on her next album, whose creation is nourished by the encounter with other forms of artistic expression such as dance and visual arts. At the FSF, Pauline Drand will live stream her concert, resident at the De Saram House. 
Location: Online

July 11th -17th “Spirits of Natures”
Exhibition by: Nicolas Henry 
French photographer artiste, producer/director, and plastic artiste, Nicolas Henry draws a very personal style between portraits, theatre, and art installations. He puts his subjects/characters in these oneiric universes built by whole communities. Writings, photographs, and sculptures compose his work which was exhibited around the entire world.  
Location: Barefoot Gallery

All French Spring Festival events are free and open to the public. The French Spring Festival: Recounting Histories takes place till the 17th of July 2022. For more details on the events and to discover the full programme of the festival, visit www.frenchspringfestival.com and follow their social media pages (Facebook: @FrenchSpringFestival | Instagram: @FrenchSpringFest) for more updates.