Celebrating French culture

Alliance Française de Dhaka will start off a week-long celebration of the French Language and the International Organisation of La Francophonie (Organisation internationale de la Francophonie) with the Francophone festival called Fête de la Francophonie from March 20.

The weeklong programme includes screenings of a wide range of films, translation competition, open door at Gulshan premise and pétanque tournament at Gulshan.

The Francophone community every year celebrates and promotes worldwide the use of the French language as well as cultural and linguistic diversity. The play based on Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco’s theatre of absurd, The Bald Soprano, shows flaws of the apparently ‘meaningful communications system in the modern society’ as well as the follies of the ‘elite class’ through depiction of a story of two families living in London will be performed on stage by the students of Institute of Modern Language of Dhaka University.

The six-day festival will feature theatre performance, speech contest, short film festival, cooking competition, translation competition, visit to Lalbagh Fort, Inter-University quiz competition, French song concert and others.

Francophonie is celebrated every year on March 20 across the globe to promote the French language as well as cultural and linguistic diversity and to foster the values of peace, democracy, respect for human rights and sustainable development. The festival has been organised by six member countries of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), which have missions in Bangladesh, together with Alliances Françaises in Dhaka and Chittagong. The countries are Canada, Egypt, France, Morocco, Switzerland and Vietnam. Qatar, as an observer member, of the organisation is also participating in it.

Tags: Dhaka