On Screen This October: 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 becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.

Vahid, an unassuming mechanic, is suddenly reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he has a chance encounter with Eghbal, a man he strongly suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. Panicked, Vahid rounds up a few of his fellow ex-prisoners to try and confirm Eghbal’s identity.  Master filmmaker Jafar Panahi creates a deeply felt moral thriller, where high stakes tension combines with unexpected flurries of humor and thoughtful, sometimes devastating, questions regarding persecution and revenge. Winner of the 2025 Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

André Masson, an auctioneer at Scottie’s, receives a letter from a lawyer claiming that a common worker in the suburbs of Mulhouse owns a painting by Egon Schiele. André’s first reaction is to believe that it can only be a fake. He decides to make the trip to Mulhouse anyway and against all odds, the painting turns out to be a masterpiece gone missing in 1939. This could undoubtedly be the turning point of his career, but after a brief investigation, he realizes that he has in his hands a looted work of art.

Richard Linklater’s playful, poignant love letter to cinema reimagines the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary New Wave classic Breathless.

Starting October 15, the 13th Annual Chelsea Film Festival continues to showcase the work of emerging filmmakers, producers, and actors, staying true to its mission of introducing independent artists to audiences around the world. This year, it will feature nine films from France, including Bound by Bruises, Genealogy of Violence, Les autres, Les fractures invisibles, One Way Ticket, Paul and Julie, Pregnant?,  The Boy with White Skin, The Distance Between Us, and Night shift. 

MoMA continues to offer a retrospective of works by the great names of French heritage cinema, such as Chantal Akerman, Jean Eustache (Le père Noël a les yeux bleus) and Jean-Luc Godard (Le gai savoir).

Part of the Caribbean Film Series, Kouté vwa tells the story of a 13-year-old boy Melrick, who spends his summer vacation with his grandmother Nicole in Cayenne, French Guiana. His presence and desire to learn how to play the drums brings back the specter of Lucas, Nicole’s son, also a drummer, who died under tragic circumstances a decade earlier. Faced with the grief that haunts his family, Melrick seeks his own path to forgiveness in this touching drama by Maxime Jean-Baptiste.

L’Alliance New York is presenting a retrospective of the films of Sophie Fillières (1964-2023), a multiple award-winning director, who used comedy, drama, and fantastical elements to paint intimate, sometimes uncomfortable portraits of the neuroses, joys, and sorrows of everyday life.

During Family Saturdays, L’Alliance New York will be re-screening Sylvain Chomet’s acclaimed animated film, The Illusionist, based on an unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati. The film follows the adventures of an aging magician performing before increasingly sparse audiences at a time when people prefer to attend rock concerts rather than magic shows. Struggling to stay relevant, he leaves Paris to perform in increasingly obscure venues, where he soon meets a young woman whose friendship offers him respite from his disillusionment. The film evokes a warm nostalgia for disappearing traditions, acknowledging their ephemeral nature while quietly asserting that magic can be found in many forms.

With the support of Albertine Cinémathèque, CU Maison française is screening All We Imagine as Light, written and directed by Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment. All We Imagine as Light is a soulful study of the transformative power of friendship and sisterhood, in all its complexities and richness.

Created and curated by Professor Anna-Caroline Prost, Voices of Francophone Cinema is back for a 5th 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 and Metrograph, investigates the multi-faceted theme of “Nos libertés – Our Freedoms”, with two films being screened during October: Ghost Trail at the opening of the festival (with an introduction by director Jonathan Millet live on Zoom) and All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia.

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 October 27, the club will screen Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les diaboliques. Register today to access these one-of-a-kind films and to join the film community.

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