Recent Articles
La Tiny House
The tiny house movement has already been sweeping through the United States. With shows like “Tiny House, Big Living” and “Tiny House Nation” these minuscule homes are becoming even more popular, not only in the U.S., but also in other parts of the world. France is now in on the tiny house craze.
Bruno Thiéry started his tiny house company “La Tiny House” in 2013 after being hired by a friend to build a tiny home. Throughout the build Bruno realized that bringing tiny homes to more of Europe could give some Europeans a way to increase their standard of living. He has since built over fifteen tiny homes.
Building tiny homes in France does come with its own set of challenges. A major one is weight restrictions. Tiny homes are limited to weighing 3.5 metric tons or 7,716 pounds, this is a big difference in comparison to some tiny homes in the U.S. Which are well over 10,000 pounds. There is also a requirement in France that states all trailer loads need to be easily removable, so each tiny home structure must be able to become independent of it’s trailer.
Bruno has come up with many custom plans for the tiny homes he builds. The popular “Appalachia” floor-plan is only 95 square feet, but has features like a full kitchen, spacious bathroom and a lofted bedroom. It even has a porch that folds for travel. These tiny homes are placed upon boat trailers for easy mobility.
So are tiny homes simply a short term fad or are they the wave of the future? Only time will tell.
2016 Cannes Festival
The 2016 Cannes Festival started May 11th and will conclude this Sunday May 22nd. Known until 2002 as the International Film Festival, the annual film festival held in Cannes, France was founded in 1946. The festival previews new films from around the world in many genres.
Each year a jury for each category is selected to determine which films will be awarded the prestigious Cannes awards. Jurors are selected from an array of international artists. A president of the jury is appointed as well. Australian Director, George Miller, is serving as the president for the main competition for 2016.
The main event, The Official Selection, is twenty feature films all vying for the top award, the Palme d’Or, Golden Palm, which is awarded to the best film. Several other awards are handed out as well, including a jury prize, best actor/actress, best screenplay, and even a Palm dog, for best canine performance, to name a few.
Films nominated for The Official Selection for 2016 include:
American Honey, Aquarius, Elle, From the Land of the Moon, Graduation, The Handmaiden, I, Daniel Blake, It’s Only the End of the World, Julieta, The Last Face, Loving, Ma’ Rosa, The Neon Demon, Paterson, Personal Shopper, The Salesman, Staying Vertical, Sieranevada, Slack Bay, Toni Erdmann, and The Unknown Girl.
These films represent productions from sixteen different countries.
Tune in May 22nd to view The Closing Ceremonies which will be broadcast live. For more information on the 2016 Cannes Festival visit the festival’s official website:
http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/
Lemon Festival
The 83rd Lemon Festival will take place between February 13th and March 2nd this year. The festival is held in the small town of Menton on the French Riviera. The festival has become the second largest on the French Riviera, second only to the Carnival of Nice. The event draws over 200,000 spectators and requires 145 tons of citrus fruit.
The Lemon Festival celebrates the end of winter. The Biovès Garden, which is centrally located in Menton, features large figurines and statues made entirely of fruit. Floats adorned with fruit are also paraded through the city center. Acrobats, dancers, and musicians accompany the floats. Fireworks follow evening processions.
Each year the festival is given a different theme. Last year’s theme was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It featured statues such as Captain Nemo, his boat, and a variety of sea creatures. This year the Lemon Festival will pay tribute to Cinecittà, the Italian cinema of the 50s and 60s.
Hotels in Menton fill quickly on the days of the festival due to the masses of tourists. It’s important to book accommodations well in advance. Tickets to see the parades range from 8 to 17 euros. Don’t forget to pick up a variety of citrus souvenirs available; even small lemon trees are sold.
Nice Carnival
The Nice Carnival will take place between February 13th and 28th this year on the streets of Nice, France. It is one of the oldest carnivals in the world, dating all the way back to the 13th century. Today it has become a 12-day festivity that includes parades of floats, The Battle of Flowers, and ends with Mardis Gras. The event draws over 1 million visitors to the French Riviera each year.
A grand parade of 20 floats kicks of the carnival. Decorated in a different theme each year, the floats display giant papier-mache puppets called grosses tetes, or big heads. The carnival king leads the precession. The enormous puppets come to life as the floats move, creating quite a show. There are also evening parades in which the floats are illuminated, emitting a glow across the entire city.
Bastille de Fleurs, The Battle of Flowers, takes place throughout the carnival. Flower-themed floats parade through Nice, playing music and carrying performers, as well as, thousands of local blooms. The flowers are thrown and launched from cannons into the crowds. Most of the flora is local to the French Riviera and includes roses, carnations, gerberas, mimosa, and gladioli, along with many other varieties.
It may be too late to attend this years Carnival, but you may want to start planning for 2017. The Nice Carnival is the most popular event on the French Riviera and hotels fill up quickly. Many events are free during the carnival, however there are fees for some parades and allow for the best views. The tickets range from 10-25 euros.
France Requires Donation of Edible Food Waste
By Amanda Scott
France is making it illegal for grocery stores to throw out edible food. France’s Parliament voted unanimously for the new law, which states that any edible food must be donated to charity or used as animal feed. Come July 2016, large food stores in violation could face fines up to $82,000 or two years imprisonment.
For years poor families and students, as well as homeless individuals, have scoured supermarket dumpsters for edible food. What is disturbing is that many stores where dousing thrown out food with chemicals or keeping the discarded food in locked bins in order to stop scavengers. Guillaume Garot, politician and former food minister, disturbed by these actions, proposed the bill.
Approximately one-third of food world-wide is thrown out as waste. It isn’t a problem occurring only in France or Europe. In fact, Americans throw away more food than plastic, paper, metal, or glass. Some $160 billion in food are disposed of annually in the United States alone. The massive amounts of food being tossed are enough to feed all of the hungry across the globe.
The European Union pledged to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2025 and France is leading the way. In 2013, France addressed concerns of overly conservative food expiration dates and required food sellers to label with expirations closer to the actual shelf life of the product.
France’s move towards food waste reduction has been welcomed by charities and food organizations and campaigners are calling for similar laws to be in place around the world. France isn’t the only country to donate food to the homeless and hungry, Australia has a program in which food is donated from local supermarkets to surrounding shelters.
Organisation Internationale De La Francophonie
Francophonie Festivals are celebrated each year throughout the world. This year, China celebrated it in March for the 20th time. This festival spreads the beauty of the French language and culture. (more…)
Language as Adventure
By Amy Williams
Growing up in the United States, although things have changed quite a bit from when I was growing up, it’s unlikely that a person feels compelled to learn a second, let alone a third, language. There are, of course, foreign language requirements in universities of two years, usually Spanish or French, which is enough to request the beverage of your choice, find out where the bathroom is and, perhaps, count to ten.
World Translation Center Announces Portuguese Website Launch
World Translation Center announced today the launch of its eighth and final language-specific website, PortugueseLanguageTranslation.org, which, as the name suggests, focuses on English to Portuguese translation. In addition to a general discussion of the translation services available, the new site displays voice demos from voice over artists, with speakers from Portugal and Brazil. The Company believes these language-specific sites will enable it to test different marketing strategies while increasing its Internet presence.
Spanish and French Websites Launched
World Translation Center officially announced the launch today of two new language-specific websites, French Translation Service and Spanish Language Translation. This brings to seven the number of sites dedicated to specific languages that have been launched over the past several months and nearly completes this phase of the Company’s marketing strategy. It is anticipated that the final one of these sites, dedicated to the Portuguese language, will be launched by the end of the year.