French Film
Trailers & Synopses
All films are with English subtitles.
Note that these films may include sensitive content such as nudity, drug use, and violence.
01
The Crime Is Mine / Mon crime
Paris, France, 1935. With a wide assortment of debt collectors lining up at her door, struggling actress Madeleine Verdier has her back to the wall. But life is full of surprises. And then, for no apparent reason, someone puts a bullet in the head of the lascivious French producer, Montferrand. As a result, as if the cruel hardships of poverty weren't enough, the penniless artist now stands accused of murdering one of the city's most famous residents. Luckily, Madeleine's roommate Pauline Mauléon happens to be a lawyer. Of course, the prime suspect claims to be innocent; however, the truth is in the eye of the beholder. What happens if the producer's shocking murder isn't Madeleine's crime? — Nick Riganas
02
Chocolat
Claire Denis drew on her own childhood experiences growing up in colonial French Africa for her multilayered, languorously absorbing feature debut, which explores many of the themes that would recur throughout her work. Returning to the town where she grew up in Cameroon after many years living in France, a white woman (Mireille Perrier) reflects on her relationship with Protée (Isaach De Bankolé), a Black servant with whom she formed a friendship while not fully grasping the racial divides that governed their worlds.
03
Happening / L’événement
France, 1963. Anne is a bright young student with a promising future ahead of her. But when she becomes pregnant, she sees the opportunity to finish her studies and escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With her final exams fast approaching and her belly growing, Anne resolves to act, even if she has to confront shame and pain, even if she must risk prison to do so…
04
Stolen Kisses / Baisés volés
Discharged from the army as unfit, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) seeks out his sweetheart, violinist Christine Darbon (Claude Jade). He has written to her voluminously (but, she says, not always nicely) while in the military. Their relationship is tentative and unresolved. Christine is away skiing with friends when Antoine arrives, and her parents must entertain him themselves, though glad to see him. After she learns that Antoine has returned from military service, Christine goes to greet him at his new job as a hotel night clerk. It is a promising sign that perhaps this time, the romance will turn out happily for Antoine. He is, however, quickly fired from the hotel job. Counting the army, Antoine loses three jobs in the film, and is clearly destined to lose a fourth, all symbolic of his general difficulty with finding his identity and “fitting in.”
05
Paris Memories / Revoir Paris
After an idyllic date night full of red wine and a late-night motorcycle ride home, Mia (Virginie Efira) stops at a Parisian bistro to take shelter from a downpour. Her reprieve is shattered when a gunman opens fire. Three months later, with a frustratingly hazy memory of the attack, Mia finds herself numbed and unable to resume her life. Her friends and partner seek something from her that she can no longer give. Determined to reconstruct the sequence of events and reestablish a sense of normalcy, Mia finds herself repeatedly returning to the bistro where the shooting happened. In the process, she forms bonds with fellow survivors, including wry banker Thomas (Benoît Magimel) and orphaned teenager Félicia (Nastya Golubeva). When she remembers that a stranger helped her make it through the attack, Mia resolves to find him, if only to make sure that he is alive. Revoir Paris is a moving meditation on grief, healing, and the importance of connections forged in tragedy.
06
The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie
Rafael Acosta, ambassador from a fictional South American republic, arrives with M. and Mme. Thévenot and the latter’s younger sister Florence to dine at the home of M. and Mme. Sénéchal (the three men enjoy a profitable association by smuggling heroin). Learning from Mme. Sénéchal that her husband is out and they have arrived a day early, the party repair to a nearby restaurant but are deterred from eating the meal they have ordered by the corpse of the proprietor, laid out in the next room. Their further attempts to eat together and their acceptance of the increasingly bizarre events interrupting them are interwoven with dream sequences, revealing the entitled hypocrisy and deep-seated fears of the continually frustrated dinner guests.
07
Casa Susanna
In the 1950s and ’60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a modest house in the Catskills region of New York. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place for them to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed—dressed as women without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalized for their self-expression. Told through the memories of those whose visits to the house would change their lives, the film provides a moving look back at a secret world where the persecuted and frightened found freedom, acceptance and, often, the courage to live their lives out of the shadows. A co-production with ARTE, Casa Susanna is directed by the critically acclaimed French filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz (Wild Side, Little Girl, Bambi).
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Using a rich trove of color photos of Casa Susanna’s guests, archival footage and personal remembrances, the film reconstructs the forgotten life of Susanna Valenti, the courageous woman who ran the house. From her enlistment in the army as a man to her marriage to Marie, an eccentric older Italian woman, Susanna led a life that, even today, many would find hard to imagine. Like Susanna, many who came to the Catskills house were married and fathers, working as airplane pilots, tugboat captains, film directors and authors. They found each other and Casa Susanna through word-of-mouth and Transvestia, a magazine for and by the trans and cross-dressing community. In the film, two people whose lives were forever changed at Casa Susanna, Diane and Kate, travel back to the now-abandoned site and share their memories of a time when people like them, from all over the country, came to a place where they were free to dress and live as women from morning to night.