Documentary About Mark Twain & Joan of Arc Wins Top Prize at Paris Film Festival

Mark Twain et Jeanne d’Arc: L’hisoire d’une passion, a French-language short documentary about Twain’s lifelong interest in the iconic heroine, Joan of Arc, was recently awarded the top prize in the documentary category at the Anstia Film Festival in Paris.

The film, written by recent Quarry Farm Fellow, Ronald Jenn, and directed by Patrice Thery, uses pictures and documents from French and American archives, including our own, to familiarize its audience with the author, the subject of his passionate interest, and, finally, the novel, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, which he published in 1896.

The film made its US debut in August of 2017 here in Elmira, as part of our 8th Quadrennial Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies. It prominently features Elmira College alumna, Olivia Clemens, and discusses the importance of Elmira and Quarry Farm in Twain’s life.

Jenn, who is also a professor at Universite Lille, reports,

“The jury, comprised of an iconic anchorwoman from France 3, a state-owned TV channel, a journalist from the same channel and two photographers/film-makers said that the movie stood out as exceptionally well-written, especially intriguing as to its topics and very well-made thanks to the wealth of quality images provided by the Mark Twain Project. They underlined the way research was made accessible to a large audience and the obvious international scholarly collaboration the film was the fruit of.”

We are so proud to have played our small part in that collaboration and offer a hearty congratulations to Professor Jenn and the other filmmakers. We thank them for promoting this under-appreciated piece of Twain’s legacy. We hope you will take a few moments to watch the film (with English subtitles) embedded below.