On Screen This November: Film & TV in New York

The world is a perplexing, peaceful mystery to Amélie until a miraculous encounter with chocolate ignites her wild sense of curiosity. As she develops a deep attachment to her family’s housekeeper, Nishio-san, Amélie discovers the wonders of nature as well as the emotional truths hidden beneath the surface of her family’s idyllic life as foreigners in post-war Japan.

Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb and brought to life in the completely original animated style of directors Mailys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han, Little Amélie or the Character of Rain tells a tender, poignant and visually stunning story about the healing power of human connection.

A powerful act of witness and remembrance, this urgent, deeply personal documentary unfolds through video calls between filmmaker Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Their connection bridges both geography and grief, offering a rare, unfiltered window into daily life inside Gaza. Hassona’s grace, resilience, and luminous spirit ground the film in a quiet strength. Tragically, an Israeli missile strike killed Hassona and her family just one day after the film’s selection by the Cannes Film Festival. What remains is a poetic collaboration turned posthumous elegy—and a vital testament to the lives and stories that refuse to be silenced.

A magical and beautifully animated journey through time, Arco is a dazzling adventure about a 10-year-old boy from a peaceful, distant future who accidentally travels back to the year 2075 and discovers a world in peril. As Arco develops a charming and touching friendship with a young girl named Iris, they band together and along with her trusted robot caretaker Mikki, set out on a quest to get Arco home, while the two children may also be the only ones who can save our planet.  A wondrous odyssey filled with hope and optimism for our future, Arco is an enchanting fable from breakout filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu, produced by Remembers’ Bienvenu and Felix de Givry, and mountainA’s Natalie Portman and Sophie Mas. The film debuted at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and won The Cristal Award for Best Feature Film at the 2025 Annecy Awards.

Q&A with Director Ugo Bienvenu:

• Thursday, Nov. 13 following the 6:45pm show
• Friday, Nov. 14 following the 7:00pm show

Created and curated by Professor Anna-Caroline Prost, Voices of Francophone Cinema is back for a 5th smash edition featuring some of the most cutting edge films from the Francophone World. This year’s edition, made possible with the support of Albertine Foundation, celebrates and investigates the multi-faceted theme of our Nos libertés – Our Freedoms: freedom to rebuild after a life of trauma, to expand the limits of our possibilities, to examine, question and transform our society, to understand our past, to experience joy and rebirth…there are many ways in which the films from this selection bring to light all that we can achieve in one lifetime and through filmmaking!

Featuring Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (2024), Miséricordia (2024), and The Count of Monte Cristo (2024).

Returning to New York from Wednesday, November 12 until Sunday, November 30, the DOC NYC festival will feature our 2025 Villa Albertine resident Sepideh Farsi‘s latest film, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (also opening in theaters on November 5), as well as Yves Jeuland’s groundbreaking documentary How Volodymyr Became Zelensky, co-written by acclaimed journalist Ariane Chemin.

This year’s lineup includes 10 French films and co-productions, such as I, Poppy, Always, Aurora, Lost for Word, Orwell:2+2=5, Imago, TCB : The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing, and Unanimal.

One Film One Federation (OFOF), in collaboration with Telescope Film, presents French Cinémathèque – a celebration of Francophone cinema offering a curated selection of monthly films from January – December, 2025. Alliance Française members worldwide can enjoy the monthly selection on specified streaming platforms followed by a free hosted discussion in English with Peter Debruge, Chief Film Critic of Variety.

Catch this month’s selection, L’histoire de Souleymane (Souleyman’s Story).

After emmigrating from Guinea, Souleymane works as a delivery driver in Paris. Waiting for his asylum interview, he practices the story that he will tell the French administration. However, homelessness, trouble at work, financial difficulties, and anxiety about his family in Guinea, make it difficult to prepare, and he worries that his asylum application will not be accepted.

In this urgent third feature from Boris Lojkine, the streets of Paris become the backdrop for a gripping portrait of survival and resilience. Souleymane’s Story follows a young Guinean immigrant (played by first-time actor Abou Sangaré in a remarkable performance) as he frantically bicycles from one food delivery to another, all while preparing for a pivotal asylum interview.

Filmed with concealed cameras and inspired by the stylistic realism of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the film offers a visceral, street-level view of a city too often indifferent to the lives of its most vulnerable workers. What unfolds is a powerful, pulse-pounding, and deeply human account of determination in the face of an unforgiving system.

Winner of four César Awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Nina Meurisse), Best Male Revelation (Abou Sangaré), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing.

Le Heist Français, a two-week, 12-film festival of French heist classics will run in celebration of the 70th anniversary of Jules Dassin’s RIFIFI, the 1955 masterpiece of French Film Noir.

The lineup includes the greatest of the genre: Godard’s free-associative meditation on the gangster movie BAND OF OUTSIDERS (1964), starring Anna Karina; Jacques Becker’s French policier TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954), a poignant look at friendship and betrayal starring Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, and Lino Ventura (in his debut); Claude Sautet’s penetrating study of a tough guy at the end of his rope CLASSE TOUS RISQUES (1960), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Lino Ventura; Philippe de Broca’s spy movie spoof THAT MAN FROM RIO (1964), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Françoise Dorléac; and the work of the undisputed master of the genre, Jean-Pierre Melville’s BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1955), UN FLIC (1972), LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE(1966), LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970), and more.

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