The 8th edition of the OH LÀ LÀ! French Comedy Festival will take place from November 27 – December 5, 2025. Artistic Director Caroline Boneh has curated a diverse program of new films, premieres, and classic comedies, with screenings at the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Herzliya, Holon, Rosh Pina, and Sderot cinematheques, as well as the Anis Cultural Center in Jaffa, Cinema Citiy Netanya and Cinema City Glilot. Each cinema has chosen a selection of films to screen, the festival website has the full program with a list of cinematheque screenings for each film. OH LÀ LÀ! is the initiative of Caroline Boneh, founder and CEO of Eden Cinema, and is produced with the support of the French Institute of Tel Aviv and UniFrance Films.
Here’s a look at a selection of the films:
Opening the festival will be Leave One Day (Partir un Jour), a musical comedy directed by Amélie Bonnin, which was the opening film at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Juliette Armanet stars as Cécile, a woman in mid-life, whose life is about to change, but not exactly in the way she imagined. A chef, she is about to realize her life-long dream of opening her own restaurant, but then her father has a serious heart attack. She leaves behind her life in the city to care for him in her childhood home – a village in Northeastern France. There she encounters not only her memories, but the man who was her teenage crush, which, along with her responsibility to her father, causes her to reconsider her choices. The film is Amélie Bonnin’s feature directorial debut, and it marks the first time that the Cannes festival opened with a debut feature.
Avignon (Rodrigue in Love), directed by Johann Dionnet, is a charming film that evokes all the excitement and magic of a theatre festival. The film is set against the background of the Avignon Festival, the oldest arts festival in France which is held every summer. Stéphane (Baptiste Lecaplain), an actor who hasn’t quite made it yet, agrees to join his former troupe to perform in a comedy. While at the festival, he notices Fanny (Elisa Erka), a former fellow student, who is performing in one of the more serious plays at the festival. Eager to impress her, he lets her believe that he is playing the part of Rodrigue in Corneille’s Le Cid, which turns out to be her favorite play. Stéphane struggles to maintain the lie, while growing closer to Fanny. In the meantime, the comedy troupe has struggles of its own trying to fill the theatre and break even.
La bonne étoile (Lucky Star), directed by Pascal Elbé, is set in 1940s France. Benoît Poelvoorde stars as Jean Chevalin – terrified by war, he deserts the army, and although he is a simple man, he understands that soon France will be in the hands of Germany. In a misguided attempt to help his family survive, he decides that they will pose as Jews, because Jews always come out all right in the end. As Chevalin becomes Chevalovich, Jean and his family realize that escaping to the free zone will not be as easy as they thought. Along the way, they encounter Jews – perhaps for the first time in their lives, and learn to relate to them as fellow humans, rather than “others”. Poelvoorde is hilarious throughout the adventures and misadventures of his character, as Jean gets himself in and out of trouble.
