Back in the early ’90s, Régis Painchaud rented the Cinematheque with money from his own pocket, “called a few friends”, and gave Vancouver its inaugural Rendez-Vous French Film Festival.

“It was, first and foremost, for myself,” Painchaud recalls in a call to the Georgia Straight. “When I first arrived, I said, ‘Vancouver is so beautiful, but the cultural side is a little bit poor.’ I was missing the cinema produced in Quebec, and I started to meet people in Vancouver with the same appetite as me for the French movies.”

In the 23 years since the former resident of Montreal launched Rendez-Vous to an audience that he remembers maxing out at about 50 people, that appetite has obviously not diminished, while the situation has definitely improved. Vancouverites with a jones for francophone cinema are well serviced by the Cinematheque, Vancity Theatre, and Vancouver International Film Festival, but Rendez-Vous carries Painchaud’s stamp as a thoughtful and seasoned programmer.

“I love when I receive a link to a movie and it’s something like Mes nuits feront echo, and I just think, ‘Wow…,’ ” says Painchaud, who has secured 22 features for this year’s Rendez-Vous, including big-ticket titles like Xavier Dolan’s Juste la fin du monde, Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s monumental Human, and the Claire Simon documentary, Le Bois dont les rêves sont faits—which arrives fresh from being named by Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the top 10 films of 2016.

Along with a robust program of shorts (“The future of cinema is there,” Painchaud says), new voices are strongly represented by films like Pays from Chloé Robichaud, following her acclaimed debut with 2013’s Sarah Prefers to Run, and Yan England, who will be in attendance for the screening of his first feature, 1:54.

Naturally, Rendez-Vous also has its share of crowd pleasers in the shape of Xavier Giannoli’s multiple-César-nominated Marguerite and the political farce Votez Bougon while allowing room for outsider efforts like Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first film in French, Daguerrotype.

A run of eight documentaries, meanwhile, is half seriously referred to by Painchaud as an “identity bloc”. Indeed, Quebec My Country Mon Pays and Le Peuple interdit both deal explicitly with questions of identity—the latter turning its attention, perhaps surprisingly, to the Catalan independence movement in Spain—but a film like Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent’s Demain takes a more ambitious view of the potential for human solidarity.

“This is a special film. An incredible movie,” says Painchaud, adding that Demain took the best-documentary honours at last year’s César Awards. “It’s a film about the environment, but instead of talking about disaster, it talks about solutions. It’s a feel-good movie about real democracy. It’s so appropriate, especially with the election of Trump. The film tells how to envision the next step for the planet.”

From French cinema to global salvation? Painchaud is clearly a man who has always aimed high. If his name is familiar, it’s probably because he cofounded and helped run L’Espace, a much-admired cultural venue that was shut down by the city in 2006. Rendez-Vous, he says, is the 23-year preamble to his next big idea.

“I will try to build a new movie theatre over the next couple years,” he promises. “I’m absolutely serious. We need places. Classy places.”

See the Straight's picks for the festival here.

The Rendez-Vous French Film Festival takes place at multiple venues from Wednesday (February 1) to February 12. More info is at www.rendez-vousvancouver.com/.