School’s Out School’s

FEBRUARY 28–MARCH 10 . TICKETS: FILMLINC.ORG WHAT I SAW AT THE PICTURES BY RUSSELL BANKS

This year’s American ambassador for Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, the novelist Russell Banks (The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction) is an avid cinephile and Francophile deeply influenced by French film. Banks is currently working with French director on his next film.

nce a week, usually on a So by the late 1950s and early Saturday afternoon, in my small- 1960s, as we entered adult life, we were Otown New England childhood suffering from a weird kind of cognitive in the 1940s and early 1950s, we went to dissonance. We had been told and shown “the pictures” or “the picture show.” As by the moving pictures that, in the real in The Last Picture Show. We didn’t go world, right and wrong were absolutes to the cinema or to a film or even to the and easy to distinguish from one another. movies. This three- or four-hour afternoon We were told and shown that adult interlude in the dark—with cowboys men and women had clearly defined and Indians, Tarzan and Jane, Abbott roles, responsibilities, and relations, and and Costello, the Three Stooges, Tom & any violation or confusion about those Jerry and Disney cartoons, triumphant matters would be severely and correctly World War II movies, and the occasional punished. We were told and shown by Technicolor romance or historical those moving images that America, costume drama—was our reward for even when it fell short of greatness (The having suffered all week under the Grapes of Wrath and All the King’s Men authoritarian yoke of the adults who ran and Citizen Kane), was still the greatest our country and our schools, churches, nation that ever existed on earth. and families. We were postwar and Yet it was becoming increasingly McCarthy-era American boys and girls, clear to us that in the real world undiscriminating, easy to thrill and amuse, distinguishing right from wrong was and escapist. Though we did not know it, difficult and sometimes impossible; that our vision of the real world (whatever that good men and women often behaved was) was being subliminally shaped by badly to one another and especially to what we thought was only a short-lived children and the powerless; that cruel, Saturday afternoon escape from that real unjust, and exploitative acts usually world. We thought it was idle diversion; it went unpunished; that certainty of any was, in fact, programmed pro-American kind was mostly inaccessible, and moral propaganda. ambiguity, emotional conflict, and political

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA oppression were everywhere. Even in life, like mine, was controlled by obtuse, America. Our vision of the world, shaped shape-shifting, self-absorbed, hypocritical as it was by the moving pictures, did not adults, who were themselves controlled correspond to our growing experience of by malignant authority figures, mostly the world. That was the power of those off-screen, like invisible puppeteers. picture shows. They could disregard and Truffaut’s stutter-step pacing, alternating diminish our felt, known experience of with seemingly interminable long shots, reality and even displace it. was the pacing of my subjective reality. By 1959, pummeled by this cognitive The film was a whole new kind of picture dissonance, I was a 19-year-old beatnik show, a new realism, one that portrayed poet, con man, and petty criminal living the world in the way that I had personally, in Boston. A friend, a more cosmopolitan secretly experienced all my life. beatnik poet than I, directed me to the It was for me a strictly personal old Brattle Theater in Cambridge, where revelation. I had no idea that there was I saw François Truffaut’s The a cinematic revolution 400 Blows. A revelation! going on in that a A swift dissolution of that decade later would radically dissonance, an immediate revise the conventions untangling of the knot of of American film as well, conflicts and contradictions influencing at a profound between the world as artistic and technical level revealed and dramatized by the work of writer-directors the American picture shows like Scorsese, Coppola, of my childhood and youth Schrader, Altman, and and my subjective experience of the Cassavetes. I was not a reader of Cahiers world to that point. du cinéma and had never heard of André confirmed and Bazin and had no notion of the Nouvelle validated my felt social, emotional, Vague. But after The 400 Blows, I knew and moral reality. The poor, buffeted, what I wanted to see at the picture misunderstood Antoine Doinel (movingly show. Soon I was a regular at the Brattle portrayed by the teenaged Jean-Pierre Theatre and the Exeter, taking deep dives Léaud) was me, the teenaged Russell into the work of Godard, Bresson, Varda, Banks, standing alone on the shore Resnais, and their cohort. Suddenly films between a life as a petty criminal and an were like works of literature to me—high as-yet uncreated life as a writer. Antoine’s art, possibly the highest art of my era, life, though lower-middle-class Parisian, capable of shaping my imagination was mine. I saw it in gritty, urban black and intellect in ways that would make it and white and shifting shades of gray, possible for me to become someday an not in day-glo Technicolor. Antoine’s artist myself.

Image: The 400 Blows (Sedif/Les Films Du Carosse/Janus/The Kobal Collection) FOR TICKETS VISIT FILMLINC.ORG

Photo by Sedif/Les Films Sedif/Les by Photo Du Carosse/REX/ShutterstockDu

OPENING NIGHT 2016 Nicol ©Claire RUSSELL BANKS PRESENTS

NEW YORK PREMIERE THE 400 BLOWS THE TROUBLE WITH YOU (LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS) (EN LIBERTÉ!) François Truffaut, France, 1959, 99m Pierre Salvadori, France, 2018, 108m When film critic François Truffaut was A heartfelt performance from Adèle Haenel challenged to put into practice what he’d anchors the latest comic whirlwind by Pierre been preaching, he chose to tell the In the Courtyard Salvadori, whose played at story of a 13-year-old wild child in Paris Rendez-Vous in 2015. Haenel’s Yvonne is whose adventures were based on his coping with the loss of her husband (Vincent own adolescence. Rejected or rebuffed Elbaz), a fellow police investigator and by school, family, and community, young something of a folk hero in their small Riviera Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) sets town. After she discovers that his golden out on his own, propelled toward one of reputation is totally fabricated, with one faux the most famous of all movie endings: the heist resulting in the jailing of an innocent legendary snapshot of a childhood on the jeweler (Pio Marmaï), Yvonne strives to brink. The 400 Blows marked the birth of salvage this man’s fate—and in the process Jean-Pierre Léaud as crown prince of the tumbles through slapsticky fisticuffs and French New Wave, and of Truffaut as its romantic intrigue. This Cannes Directors’ runaway auteur. Fortnight standout serves up a hilarious yet tender story of integrity and redemption. Saturday, March 2 1:00pm Preceded by: LES INDES GALANTES Introduction by Russell Banks and Directed by Clément Cogitore Serge Toubiana France, 2018, 5m

Thursday, February 28 6:30pm, 9:00pm Introduction by Pierre Salvadori and Pio Marmaï before both screenings

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA U.S. PREMIERE U.S. PREMIERE AMANDA COINCOIN AND THE EXTRA- Mikhaël Hers, France, 2018, 107m HUMANS (COINCOIN ET LES Vincent Lacoste leads Mikhaël Hers’s Z’INHUMAINS) poignant new feature about trauma and Bruno Dumont, France, 2018, 200m its aftershocks. At first, David (Lacoste) is Bruno Dumont’s sequel to Li’l Quinquin just beginning to figure out life in his early revisits its ragtag characters in a new twenties, helping his sister (Ophélia Kolb) absurdist epic that reckons with xenophobia raise her 7-year-old daughter, Amanda in northern France. As gobs of ectoplasmic (Isaure Multrier), and gently initiating a gunk falls from the sky without warning, romance with a pianist (Stacy Martin, the teenage Coincoin must again evade Nymphomaniac). This era of placidity the spluttering police captain Van der is brutally ruptured, and a grief-stricken Weyden and his deputy Carpentier as they David must assume new responsibility for zoom through sparse pastoral vistas, on Amanda as a potential guardian. With an the hunt for clues. Although they’re utterly understated directorial touch, Hers creates ill-equipped to connect these splats to the a touching story of resilience deepened by sudden materialization of identical twins delicately nuanced performances. around town, their moments of prophetic lucidity are as surprising as they are reveal- Saturday, March 2 6:00pm ing. Across this expansive canvas, Coincoin Q&A with Mikhaël Hers and the Extra-Humans channels Jacques Tati, Antonin Artaud, and Invasion of the Saturday, March 9 1:30pm Body Snatchers into a deadpan fever dream, wholly singular and undeniably Dumont.

Sunday, March 3 1:00pm

FOR TICKETS VISIT FILMLINC.ORG NEW YORK PREMIERE GIRLS OF THE SUN THE FRESHMEN (LES FILLES DU SOLEIL) (PREMIÈRE ANNÉE) Eva Husson, France/Belgium/Georgia/ Thomas Lilti, France, 2018, 92m Switzerland, 2018, 111m Thomas Lilti, whose hospital drama An unshakable Golshifteh Farahani, as Hippocrates played Rendez-Vous in 2015, Bahar, the commander of an all-female unit draws upon his experience as a doctor of resistance fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, holds once again for this affectionate tale of the center of Girls of the Sun. Bahar’s squad- two medical-school freshmen. Antoine ron is comprised entirely of former captives (Vincent Lacoste) is beginning his third who survived a massacre in Corduene, attempt at the first year, which culminates and their rage to fight stems from the grief in a cutthroat entrance exam before one of witnessing the slaughter of their loved can even opt into the medical concentra- ones. A French war journalist (Emmanuelle tion. When classes commence, he meets Bercot) assigned to cover ISIS’s invasion of Benjamin (William Lebghil), an endearingly Mount Sinjar is struck by Bahar’s rejections aloof new student whose upbringing in a of her fellow male soldiers’ more cautious medical family helps him intuitively grasp strategies; instead, she suggests working course concepts. As the two become fast together to pull off a riskier infiltration of the friends and study partners, they embark enemy headquarters. Drawing from true on a year that pits academic automatism events, Eva Husson takes an uncompro- against the emotional highs and lows of mising look at the collective and individual discovering one’s calling in life. strength it takes to resist oppression.

Thursday, March 7 9:00pm Friday, March 1 1:30pm Saturday, March 9 3:45pm Sunday, March 3 8:30pm Q&A with Eva Husson

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA IN SAFE HANDS NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE (PUPILLE) INVISIBLES Jeanne Herry, France/Belgium, 2018, (LES INVISIBLES) 109m Louis-Julien Petit, France, 2018, 102m Jeanne Herry crafts a story stemming With pathos and institutional nuance, from a delicate two-and-a-half-month Louis-Julien Petit’s third social-realist state of limbo for a newborn child, Théo, drama transforms its source nonfiction who becomes a ward of the state after his text into a spirited ensemble piece about mother gives him up for adoption at birth. In a daytime shelter for homeless women. Safe Hands choreographs parallel strands After the municipal government’s decides of action: the search for potential parents to shut down the institution, the shelter’s undertaken by the social workers managing all-female staff launches into action to help Théo’s case ( and Clotilde secure employment for as many women as Mollet), the care and vigilance required for possible. Their coaching sessions compel Théo’s foster father (Gilles Lellouche) to the social workers to confront the ways in properly nurture him in the interim, and the which they, too, may be focusing more on nine-year journey of adoption applications printed résumés than people. In this buoy- and fractured marriage embarked upon by ant character-driven study indebted to a possible mother (Élodie Bouchez). Within Stephen Frears and , Petit lays this institutional balancing act, Herry’s bare the broken systems plaguing Paris’s characters swing between intense deter- approach to homelessness, while empha- mination, uncertainty, and, ultimately, joy: all sizing the social element of social work. par for the course while seeking the proper equilibrium for a person’s life to begin. Thursday, March 7 6:15pm Q&A with Louis-Julien Petit and actor Monday, March 4 6:15pm Déborah Lukumuena Q&A with Élodie Bouchez Friday, March 8 1:30pm

FOR TICKETS VISIT FILMLINC.ORG ©Pascal Chantier©Pascal

NEW YORK PREMIERE MADEMOISELLE DE KEEP AN EYE OUT! JONCQUIÈRES (AU POSTE!) Emmanuel Mouret, France, 2018, 110m Quentin Dupieux, France, 2018, 73m In Emmanuel Mouret’s witty twist on Denis Tires and TVs have come to life—and Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist, passion thirsted for blood—in two of Quentin dissipates into jealousy and hardens into Dupieux’s earlier features, Rubber and vengeance. The widowed Madame de La Reality (Rendez-Vous 2015) respectively. Pommeraye (Cécile de France) prides her- With Keep an Eye Out!, the filmmaker self on maintaining a rational distance from returns with a seemingly intimately scaled matters of the heart, but against her better bottle narrative: a minutiae-obsessed police judgment, she gives in to a persistent and inspector (Benoît Poelvoorde) bumbles and charming Marquis (Edouard Baer). When doubles back through the most agonizing the Marquis slips back into his libertine life- interrogation of all time, much to the chagrin style, the Madame concocts an elaborate of the interviewee (Grégoire Ludig), who revenge plot, and finds two susceptible stumbled upon a dead body in front of his pawns in a mother and daughter duo (Alice apartment building. When Poelvoorde’s Isaaz and Natalia Dontcheva). Of a deli- inspector momentarily steps outside and ciously calculating piece with Dangerous leaves an anxious one-eyed officer (Marc Liaisons, Mademoiselle de Joncquières Fraize) in charge, the story morphs into weds a critique of privilege to an enthralling something more off-kilter. As one might tale of deception. expect from Dupieux, this is but one of sev- eral surprises in a film that is constantly in Friday, March 1 9:00pm mesmerizing and darkly comedic flux. Q&A with Emmanuel Mouret and Edouard Baer 8:15pm Tuesday, March 5 Monday, March 4 4:00pm Sunday, March 10 7:45pm

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA NEW YORK PREMIERE NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE MAYA METEORITES Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany, (LES MÉTEORITES) 2018, 107m Romain Laguna, France, 2018, 85m Across a remarkably contemplative range After 16-year-old Nina (Zéa Duprez) sees of work, Mia Hansen-Løve has conjured a meteorite fall from the sky, she can’t find visceral points of entry into philosophical any evidence to prove what she witnessed. themes; in Maya, she thoughtfully probes Instead, the mysterious event catalyzes a the private intricacies of rehabilitation. quietly momentous summer, which sets the Four months after he was taken hostage scene for Romain Laguna’s atmospheric first in Syria, war journalist Gabriel (Roman feature. Adrift after dropping out of school, Kolinka) returns home to France. Still Nina pursues love and lust with Morad (Billal coping with his trauma, Gabriel unmoors Agab), her best friend’s older brother, who himself from now-alienating familiar faces hails from an Algerian family in their other- and decamps to India, where he spent his wise culturally homogeneous village in the childhood. While in Goa, he strikes up a south of France. As their time passes, Nina rapport with his godfather’s daughter, Maya senses a slight rift between the personal (Aarshi Banerjee), who, feeling out of place, and shared stakes of their relationship, recently dropped out of school in London. but the journey emerges as one of crucial As the two bond over their mutual rest- self-discovery. Laguna crafts an evocative lessness, Hansen-Løve gently questions and tactile portrait of the hunger for expe- whether Gabriel’s self-imposed, ever-mov- rience that shapes our teenage years, and ing isolation truly constitutes healing. Duprez’s remarkably assured performance introduces a poised new talent. Wednesday, March 6 6:00pm Q&A with Mia Hansen-Løve Thursday, March 7 4:15pm Thursday, March 7 2:00pm Sunday, March 10 3:30pm

FOR TICKETS VISIT FILMLINC.ORG THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28 OPENING NIGHT

6:30 The Trouble with You + Les Indes galantes

9:00 The Trouble with You + Les Indes galantes

FRIDAY, MARCH 1 1:30 Girls of the Sun 4:00 Raising Colors

5:00 Free Talk: Russell Banks & Bertrand Tavernier Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater

6:15 When Margaux Meets Margaux

9:00 Mademoiselle de Joncquières

SATURDAY, MARCH 2 1:00 The 400 Blows

3:30 Whatever Happened to My Revolution

6:00 Amanda

6:30 Free Talk: New French Comedies Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater 8:45 Sink or Swim

SUNDAY, MARCH 3 1:00 Coincoin and the Extra-Humans

5:45 Raising Colors

8:30 Girls of the Sun TICKETS: $12 Members, Students, Seniors (62+) and Persons with Disabilities . $17 General Public OPENING NIGHT TICKETS: $20 Members, Students, Seniors (62+) and Persons with Disabilities . $25 General Public STUDENT ALL-ACCESS PASS: $50 BUY TICKETS AT FILMLINC.ORG

MONDAY, MARCH 4 FRIDAY, MARCH 8 1:30 Whatever Happened to My 1:30 Invisibles Revolution 3:45 School’s Out Mademoiselle de Joncquières 4:00 6:00 The Summer House In Safe Hands 6:15 8:30 Paul Sanchez Is Back! 6:30 Free Talk: Filming Abroad Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater SATURDAY, MARCH 9 9:00 Sink or Swim 1:30 Amanda TUESDAY, MARCH 5 3:45 The Freshmen 5:45 Paul Sanchez Is Back! 1:30 The Summer House 8:30 School’s Out 4:00 Sophia Antipolis 6:15 The Time of the Pirates SUNDAY, MARCH 10 8:15 Keep an Eye Out! 1:30 The Truk WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 3:30 Meteorites 5:30 Sophia Antipolis 2:00 The Time of the Pirates 7:45 Keep an Eye Out! 4:00 The Truk

6:00 Maya IN-PERSON APPEARANCE 8:45 When Margaux Meets Margaux All screenings & events take place in the Walter Reade Theater unless noted. THURSDAY, MARCH 7 All films are subtitled. 2:00 Maya Image: Mademoiselle de Joncquières (Photo by Pascal Chantier, Courtesy of Pyramide Distribution/Moby Dick Films/Arte France 4:15 Meteorites Cinéma/Reborn Production)

6:15 Invisibles 9:00 The Freshmen

ESSAY CONTEST: SALUT LES JEUNES CRITIQUES Do you have strong opinions about French Cinema? The festival is holding a ­c­­ontest for cinephiles under 30, sponsored by Frenchly. Interested writers can ­submit a review of a Rendez-Vous film of their choice, and the best critique will win a round- trip flight to Paris and a free one-year subscription to TV5MONDE! The deadline to submit is March 8. Visit filmlinc.org for more information. NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE U.S. PREMIERE PAUL SANCHEZ IS BACK! RAISING COLORS (PAUL SANCHEZ EST REVENU!) (VOLONTAIRE) Patricia Mazuy, France, 2018, 110m Hélène Fillières, France, 2018, 100m The police are reticent to believe that Much to the chagrin of her pacifist family, the notorious murderer Paul Sanchez is, Sorbonne-educated Laure Baer (Diane indeed, back 10 years after he vanished Rouxel) ends up taking the first job offer without a trace. Yet adventure-hungry she receives: an administrative position in junior-officer Marion (César-winner Zita the French Navy. As training begins, Laure Hanrot, Fatima) can’t help obsessing over assumes her post supporting the austere bread crumbs of hearsay, especially once Commander Rivière (), she a local reporter (Idir Chender, Occidental) is surprised by how resonant she finds the begins receiving mysterious e-mails sup- codes of honor and discipline that structure posedly sent by Sanchez himself. Also military life. When her curiosity is piqued starring Elle’s Laurent Lafitte, this long- by the possibility of trying out for special awaited fifth feature from Patricia Mazuy ops, she commits herself to the challenge (The King’s Daughters) spins a gripping despite sexist dismissals of her capabilities, caper with ample commentary on sensa- and strives to prove herself to the Chief tionalistic media narratives—but far from Training Officer (Alex Descas). The sec- prosaic, it’s also an adrenaline rush of the ond feature-film outing by actress Hélène imagination propelled by a percussive Fillières as a director captures a palpable original score from John Cale. electricity within the formality of ceremony, inextricable from a search for self. Friday, March 8 8:30pm 4:00pm Saturday, March 9 5:45pm Friday, March 1 Sunday, March 3 5:45pm Q&A with Hélène Fillières

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA Photo by Laurent Champoussin Laurent by Photo

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE SINK OR SWIM SCHOOL’S OUT (LE GRAND BAIN) (L’HEURE DE LA SORTIE) Gilles Lellouche, Belgium/France, 2018, Sébastien Marnier, France, 2018, 103m 122m In his sophomore thriller, Sébastien Marnier With buoyant energy, Gilles Lellouche (Faultless, Rendez-Vous 2017) sets his directs a stellar ensemble in pursuit of grace sights on a chilly class of gifted students in and discarded dreams—that is, a group of the French countryside. After their teacher varyingly coordinated middle-aged men commits suicide during an exam, Pierre who find an outlet in synchronized swim- Hoffman (Laurent Lafitte) is called in as a ming. Bertrand (Mathieu Amalric) is the long-term substitute. Expecting a class reel- newbie of the bunch, having signed up on ing from this traumatic shock, Pierre is sur- a whim to take his mind off of his unemploy- prised to encounter a group of seemingly ment and depression. As he gets to know affectless mid-teens, mostly concerned his fellow swimmers (, with accelerating through their advanced- Benoît Poelvoorde, Jean-Hugues Anglade, level courses. His sense that something and Philippe Katerine), he uncovers shared is askew only grows more acute when he frustrations and disappointments, but also notices a strange indifference to physical hope in a hobby that’s less about skill than violence—both among the students and teamwork. After a year of awkward and his fellow faculty members. As Pierre spirals charmingly comedic practice sessions, further into a wormhole, Marnier maintains Bertrand’s proposal that his motley crew a sense of creeping unease that expands train for the world championships fuels into an unnerving capitalist critique. their conviction to prove that time has not passed them by. Friday, March 8 3:45pm 8:45pm Saturday, March 9 8:30pm Saturday, March 2 Q&A with Sébastien Marnier Monday, March 4 9:00pm

FOR TICKETS VISIT FILMLINC.ORG PRESENTS

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE U.S. PREMIERE SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS THE SUMMER HOUSE Virgil Vernier, France, 2018, 98m (LES ESTIVANTS) Virgil Vernier’s follow-up to his acclaimed , France/Italy, debut feature, Mercuriales (ND/NF 2015), 2018, 122m takes stock of the state of the French During an annual summer vacation to the socioeconomic order as embodied by the French Riviera, filmmaker Anna (director eponymous, dystopian business park and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) conceals a sudden an eclectic ensemble of cult members, split from her husband from her relatives, militiamen, and more. Once again working all of whom are more volatile than usual in richly textured Super 16mm, Vernier while coping with the death of her brother. moves episodically from one character Palpably in her own head while interacting to another, tracking their movements, with her sister (), her daughter thoughts, and desires in the aftermath of (real-life daughter Oumy Bruni Garrel), and the discovery of a young girl’s body, appar- her screenwriting partner (real-life co-writer ently burned alive, in one of the park’s fac- Noémie Lvovsky), Anna also prepares a film tories. A group portrait of disappointment, based on this recent loss, which is received disillusionment, and disaffection in a ver- coldly by her family. Meanwhile, the domes- itable hothouse of late capitalism, Sophia tic staff negotiates for better work conditions Antipolis is a work as singularly political as with a family they find increasingly self-­ it is sophisticatedly drawn. absorbed. Like Bruni Tedeschi’s A Castle in Italy, The Summer House invites autobi- Tuesday, March 5 4:00pm ographical readings while also complicating the idea of art as personal exorcism. Sunday, March 10 5:30pm

Tuesday, March 5 1:30pm Friday, March 8 6:00pm

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE THE TIME OF THE PIRATES THE TRUK (SEULS LES PIRATES) (L’ENKAS) Gaël Lépingle, France, 2018, 89m Sarah Marx, France/Ukraine, 2018, 83m Winner of the Grand Prix in the French After being released early from prison, competition at FIDMarseille, The Time of Ulysse (Sandor Funtek, Blue Is the the Pirates boasts a structure that is at first Warmest Color) must take over as the vignette-based and patchwork before it primary caregiver for his mother (devas- quickly settles on a focal thread: the story tatingly fleshed out by ), of Géro, the spunky owner of a community who is undergoing treatment for severe theater troupe in the Loire Valley. As the depression. Confronted by overwhelm- local government threatens to demolish ing debts and health-care costs, Ulysse his house and theater to make way for reconnects with an old friend who plans public housing, the anarchy-loving actor, to covertly sell ketamine from a food truck undeterred after losing his voice from his at an EDM festival. As Sarah Marx widens battle with cancer, plots an idiosyncratic the range of parties involved in this drug defense against the forces that threaten to ring, she emphasizes the broader contexts drain the life from both of his homes. Gaël that give rise to their increasingly cutthroat Lépingle (Julien) rounds out this earnest desperation, throwing Ulysse’s precarious and vibrant mosaic of quotidian resistance solution into jeopardy. The film’s handheld with Géro’s aspiring-playwright nephew camerawork grounds each scene in a Léo and a cohort of like-minded friends fragile immediacy evoking the Dardennes and refugees. in this stinging debut feature about the bitter casualties of class disparity. Tuesday, March 5 6:15pm 4:00pm Wednesday, March 6 2:00pm Wednesday, March 6 Sunday, March 10 1:30pm

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NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE NEW YORK PREMIERE WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MY WHEN MARGAUX MEETS REVOLUTION (TOUT CE QU’IL MARGAUX ME RESTE DE LA RÉVOLUTION) (LA BELLE ET LA BELLE) Judith Davis, France, 2018, 88m Sophie Fillières, France, 2018, 97m Angèle’s now-separated parents first fell in This irresistible fantastical tale from Sophie love on the front lines of Maoist protests, Fillières (If You Don’t, I Will, Rendez-Vous and Angèle struggles with the compromises 2014) centers on a chance meeting her family has made in exchange for com- between an impulsive twentysomething fortable lives. Actress Judith Davis’s playful named Margaux (Fillières’s daughter Agathe and passionate feature directorial debut Bonitzer) and a disenchanted fortysome- follows Angèle (Davis) into a contemporary thing (Sandrine Kiberlain) who’s not only Paris, long after the movements sparked by coincidentally named Margaux… but also is May ’68 have faded into history. Fueled by a Margaux. Pulling from her past self’s procliv- bleeding activist heart, Angèle strives to rec- ities, social circles, and future life events, the oncile her radical values with relatives who wiser Margaux revisits her memories and are trending more and more bourgeois. And regrets to give herself retroactive advice faced with the opportunity to reconnect with and, possibly, a way to start over, including her estranged mother (Mireille Perrier), who a romance with a handsome suitor (Melvil has retreated from the dreams that Angèle Poupaud). From this surreal premise, Fillières is now pursuing, she locates the strength of crafts a lovingly philosophical ode to our her convictions in her dedication to mean- stumbles through love and life. ingful interpersonal connection. Friday, March 1 6:15pm Saturday, March 2 3:30pm Q&A with Sophie Fillières and Agathe Q&A with Judith Davis Bonitzer

Monday, March 4 1:30pm Wednesday, March 6 8:45pm

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA

All talks take place in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater, 144 West 65th Street

RUSSELL BANKS AND BERTRAND TAVERNIER As UniFrance’s American ambassador for the 2019 edition of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, renowned novelist and poet Russell Banks (The Sweet Hereafter, Cloudsplitter) will sit down with Bertrand Tavernier (My Journey Through French Cinema, A Sunday in the Country), one of France’s premier filmmakers and chroniclers of film history, to reflect on French cinema and culture, as well as the process of adapting literature to the screen.

Friday, March 1 5:00pm

NEW FRENCH COMEDIES What does it take to make a comedy in the 21st century? And what are the rules, or bound- aries, of humor in contemporary cinema? Special guests of this year’s edition will discuss the many themes and perspectives of humor that have emerged in recent French films; comedy’s role in addressing social and political issues; and the process of writing, direct- ing, and acting for laughs.

Saturday, March 2 6:30pm

FILMING ABROAD In response to a rapidly globalizing community in the film industry, a selection of French and American professionals will discuss the ethics of filmmaking abroad. What are the challenges and implications of adapting a story that inhabits a different point of view? What does it take to master issues that are anchored in a different country or culture than the one you were born in, and how do you legitimize this process? Presented in partnership with French in Motion.

Monday, March 4 6:30pm

ALSO HAPPENING AT RENDEZ-VOUS The 2019 festival will place a spotlight on young people, with educational screenings of The 400 Blows and Invisibles.

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COMING SOON

SERIES & EVENTS March 27–April 7 NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS April 29 50TH ANNIVERSARY GALA

NEW RELEASES & REVIVAL RUNS Opens March 1 TRANSIT Opens March 8 AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL Opens March 15 ASH IS PUREST WHITE C

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Transit RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA RETURNS IN ITS 24TH EDITION to remind viewers that there is nothing like French cinema. The selection highlights two trends in French cinema today: biting social comedy, as seen in darkly humorous films by Pierre Salvadori, Quentin Dupieux, and Bruno Dumont; and dramas tackling complex contemporary subjects from a specific French viewpoint, including violence, terrorism, depression, social deprivation, adoption, and the thirst for revolution. This year’s selection also includes many new films directed by women, including Mia Hansen-Løve, Sophie Fillières, Hélène Fillières, Judith Davis, Sarah Marx, Jeanne Herry, and Patricia Mazuy. Co-presented with UniFrance, Rendez-Vous demonstrates that French Cinema is as vast and inspiring as ever. Artistic direction: Dennis Lim and Florence Almozini

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA IS SPONSORED BY

UNIFRANCE RECEIVES GENEROUS YEAR-ROUND SUPPORT FROM

THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER RECEIVES GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM

OFFICIAL

MEDIA SUPPORTERS

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

WALTER READE THEATER 165 WEST 65TH STREET ELINOR BUNIN MUNROE FILM CENTER 144 WEST 65TH STREET