This week Charles S. Cohen was presented with the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor at the Payne Whitney mansion, home of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Gerard Araud, Ambassador of France, conferred the honors, proclaiming, “I’m an ambassador so I’m not supposed to be funny.” Yet, he was. Following a speech by Mayor Bill De Blasio celebrating Cohen as a great New Yorker, Araud explained his levity, this was his last such ceremony as he was leaving office. Filmmaker Agnes Varda sent salutations via video, and Isabelle Huppert, currently in The Mother, an off-Broadway play, mingled with a delegation of French filmmakers and Unifrance, dedicated to promoting French culture on these shores. Unifrance partnered with the Film Society of Lincoln Center this week for the annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. The best thing about Charles S. Cohen vis a vis film: he has good taste.

Case in point: One of the Rendez-Vous filmmakers, Eva Husson, will have her film, Girls of the Sun, open this April at the Quad Cinema, the legendary downtown cinema house Cohen acquired and restored to a mini-multiplex showing mainly art house movies. A hit in Cannes, Girls of the Sun features women fighters in Afghanistan and stars Golshifteh Farahani. A tough subject for any filmmaker, this one does not shy away from brutal scenes of kidnapping, murder, war, suicide, and rape. The suspense mounts in a narrative of a harrowing escape although many, glued to the news of conflict, will know that the situation has no exit. What’s unusual is telling this story from the perspective of women. Husson said she interviewed many such fighters, in preparing her script, and shot the film in Russia’s Georgia.

While Charles S. Cohen has distributed foreign films for several years, the refurbishing of the Quad represents a marriage of his work in real estate with his passion. La Pagode, an equally historic theater in Paris’ chic 7th arrondisement will similarly be restored. Cohen’s mother, wife and two sons were on hand at the ceremony, beaming with pride, while Cohen assured an admirer, the boys are both doing especially well in French.

Regina Weinreich

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