On Screen This September: Film & TV in New York

Jeanne (Clara Pacini), a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot for a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star, Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.

France, 1971
Directed by Robert Bresson
Based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story White Nights
Starring Isabelle Weingarten and Guillaume des Forêts
Cinematography by Pierre Lhomme
Approx. 82 min. 4K DCP.

On the Pont Neuf, Guillaume des Forêts befriends Isabelle Weingarten, potentially suicidal over the absence of her lover.   Over the next four nights, he desperately falls for her himself , but a question lingers – what if her lover shows up?

A Janus Films Release

Belgian auteur Chantal Akerman envisioned this live, musical take on her 1993 travelogue D’Est in 2005 with her partner, cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton. Now, in this New York Premiere, Wieder-Atherton performs her curated score alongside award-winning pianist, Sarah Rothenberg. 

Discover Zar Amir’s films at Metrograph along with his short movie Two People Exchanging Salivean.

A writer, director, casting director, producer, and actor, Tehran-born, Paris-based Amir helmed her first short, Khat, when she was only 18, and has since established herself as a force to be reckoned with in international cinema. Don’t miss this tribute to an indomitable and exacting artist, who will be visiting Metrograph in person to present a program that includes her directorial work, Tatami, as well as Two People Exchanging Saliva, Holy Spider, Shayda, and Mehran Tamadon’s documentary My Worst Enemy. 

MoMA’s complete retrospective of Chantal Akerman’s work for the cinema, comprising more than 40 features and rarely screened short films in new digital preservations, celebrates a multiyear effort by the Fondation Chantal Akerman and the Royal Film Archive of Belgium — CINEMATEK to restore, document, and exhibit her career in film, installation, and writing. International audiences hungering to discover more about Akerman (b. Belgium, 1950–2015) in the wake of her death have been rewarded with unprecedented access to her moving-image and paper archives.

French mime, screenwriter, and director Jacques Tati’s hapless, old-world alter ego Monsieur Hulot appeared in four sublime comedies from 1953 through 1971. Hulot’s third go-round, Playtime, a commercial and critical disaster upon its original release, is now ranked 23rd in the 2022 Sight & Sound critics’ poll of the greatest films ever made. A feast for the eyes, Playtime stages subtle choreography within graphic, mid-century production design, as Hulot embarks on a 24-hour trip through a bewildering, hyper-consumerist Paris. The influence of Tati’s alter ego on the Pee-wee Herman character is palpable: both are postmodern clowns in distinct visual worlds, who virtuosically reimagine physical comedy.

Explore upcoming screenings of French films, including:

• Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé September 3, 5 – 6
• Titane by Julia Ducournau, September 26, 29 – 30  
• Clouds of Sils Maria by Olivier Asayas, September 26 and 30  
• Passages by Ira Sachs, September 26 – 27 

Join One Film One Federation and Telescope Film for French Cinémathèque, a free monthly online film club hosted by Peter Debruge, Chief Film Critic at Variety. On September 22, the club will screen François Ozon’s When Fall is Coming.  Register below to access these one-of-a-kind films and to join the film community.

RSVP

Discover our roundup of this month’s must-see programs available on the international French-language network, TV5 Monde.