French Film Highlights This April

Alpha is a 2025 body-horror drama film written and directed by Villa Albertine resident Julia Ducournau. It stars Tahar Rahim, Golshifteh Farahani, Mélissa Boros, Emma Mackey, Finnegan Oldfield, and Louai El Amrousy. The story follows a teenage girl who, after returning from school with a tattoo, is feared to have contracted a new lethal bloodborne disease.

The film had its world premiere in the main competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 19 May, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or.

In 1936, as the British Empire tightens its grip on Palestine, Yusuf is caught between his village home and his work in Jerusalem. Amidst an anti-colonial revolt and Jewish refugees fleeing persecution from Europe, all sides converge in a decisive moment for the region. Palestine’s Official Selection for the 98th Academy Awards.

At the height of Stalin’s purges, an idealistic prosecutor investigating abuses by the secret police finds himself caught in a dangerous web of bureaucratic paranoia.

In 1955, 60-year-old Marcel Pagnol is a well-known and acclaimed playwright and filmmaker. When the editor-in-chief of ELLE magazine commissions a weekly column about Pagnol’s childhood, he sees this as a great opportunity to go back to his artistic roots: writing. Realizing his memory is failing him and deeply affected by the disappointing results of his last two plays, Pagnol starts doubting his ability to pursue his work. That is until Little Marcel – the young boy he used to be – appears to him as if by magic. Together, they will explore Marcel Pagnol’s incredible life and bring back to life his most cherished encounters and memories…

Jason Robards stars as a New York Jewish lawyer who returns to his hometown of Stuttgart after 55 years to find traces of his parents (including a doctor father who was proud of having fought for the Fatherland during WWI) and closest school friend, scion of one of Germany’s most notable families. Told mostly in flashback, REUNION centers on the two 16-year-old boys (Christien Anholt as the young Robards and Samuel West as his aristocratic friend) and their unlikely friendship, even as national socialism begins to insinuate itself into everyday life.

François Ozon reunites with Summer of 85 star Benjamin Voisin for a sensitive, queer-inflected adaptation of Albert Camus’s existential classic, bringing Algeria to the thematic and visual foreground. The film was nominated for four César Awards and won Best Supporting Actor for Pierre Lottin.

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 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—with her trusted robot caretaker Mikki—on a quest to get Arco home, while the two children may also be the only ones who can save the planet.

A wondrous odyssey filled with hope and optimism, Arco is an enchanting fable from breakout filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu, produced by Remembers’ Ugo 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.

Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son but soon realizes that the city is far from being a non-violent refuge. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it garnered widespread acclaim and emerged as the festival’s most awarded film, earning Wagner Moura the Best Actor award and Mendonça Filho the Best Director award.

A father (Sergi López) and his son arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco. They are searching for Mar — daughter and sister — who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading, but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.

Sentimental Value follows sisters Nora and Agnes as they reunite with their estranged father, Gustav, a once-renowned film director, after the death of their mother. Hoping to stage a comeback and repair old wounds, Gustav offers stage actress Nora the lead role in his new, deeply personal film. When she refuses, he casts a young Hollywood star instead, forcing the sisters to confront their complicated loyalties, buried resentments, and the emotional cost of turning family history into art.

After years of self-imposed exile, a pianist, Mathias (François Civil), returns to France, where his former mentor, Eléna (Charlotte Rampling), has invited him to perform a series of concerts with her in his hometown of Lyon. Once a rising star of the French musical scene and Eléna’s prized pupil, Mathias has spent many years teaching and performing in Japan. Soon after his arrival, a chance encounter with a child who looks just like him throws Mathias into turmoil, threatening to drag him down, and leads him back to his first love, Claude (Nadia Tereszkiewicz). French master Arnaud Desplechin (My Sex Life…, A Christmas Tale) returns to some of his favorite themes – homecomings and unexpected reunions (romantic and otherwise) – in this melodrama featuring one of Rampling’s most delicious roles in years.

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

Discover Criterion’s April line-up, where timeless classics, hypnotic noir, and intimate documentaries collide. Enjoy the dreamlike world of Resurrection by Bi Gan (2025), the shadowy brilliance of Jacques Tourneur’s noirs (1947-1956), and learn more about Jane Birkin  in Jane by Charlotte (2021)

The Princeton French Film Festival returns for its particularly ambitious fourth edition, running from March 20 to April 23, 2026, with a lineup celebrating French and Francophone cinema through over 20 films—from timeless classics to U.S. premieres—alongside 14 Q&As, masterclasses, exhibitions, and a literary festival. It features thematic focuses like animation, ecology, diaspora, and comedy, screening across Princeton University campus, the Public Library, Garden Theater, and Arts Council venues in original languages with English subtitles. Highlights include the 4K restoration of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with a post-screening Q&A, and closing with Michel Ocelot’s Dilili in Paris followed by Q&A with the prestigious filmmaker.

Villa Albertine resident Sophie Letourneur would be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening of L’Aventura  (108 min, 2025) on April 21, 2026 at 7pm—her latest film chronicling a chaotic family road trip via voice notes. Other highlights like Les Coquillettes and Voyages en Italie round out this focus on her autofictional, humorous style blending intimate fiction and daily life chronicles.

Focus on French Cinema spotlights three films that capture the emotional depth and formal diversity of contemporary French filmmaking :

– The Residence (Dalloway) on April 12, directed by Yann Gozlan, is a near‑future thriller about novelist Clarissa Katsef, who retreats to a high‑tech artist residency in the middle of a health crisis, only to find her creative process manipulated by an ever‑present AI assistant named Dalloway. As the boundaries between reality, fiction, and surveillance blur, the film turns into a tense psychological portrait of writing, control, and digital intimacy. Completing this strand of human–machine unease is

– D’un monde à l’autre, available on April 13, an intimate documentary‑style journey in which actor Jérémie Renier, grieving the accidental death of his best friend, embarks on an Arctic expedition with explorer Loury Lag. Across hostile ice floes and silent landscapes, the film becomes a contemplative meditation on mourning, rebirth, and the fragile bonds that keep us “alive again” after loss.

– In deliberate contrast, The Rose Maker on April 17 brings warmth and humor to the program: Pierre Pinaud’s buoyant comedy follows Catherine Frot as Ève Vernet, a once‑celebrated rose grower facing bankruptcy, who hires three inexperienced workers and devises a daring plan—to create a prize‑winning hybrid rose and pull off a gentle “heist” to secure the parent plants she needs.

At Anthology Film Archives, the series Metaphysics of the Pratfall: Jerry Lewis and Jean-Luc Godard brings into dialogue two seemingly disparate yet deeply intertwined figures of modern cinema. Pairing films by Jerry Lewis and Jean-Luc Godard, the program explores their shared commitment to pushing the boundaries of cinematic form. Conceived as a tribute to their unexpected affinities, the series highlights how both artists transformed cinema into a laboratory for invention, blurring the lines between entertainment and avant-garde practice.

Each year, ReelAbilities highlights powerful stories that center the lives, perspectives, and experiences of people with disabilities across communities and cultures. From April 23–30, 2026, we will present groundbreaking films, riveting conversations, and opportunities for meaningful engagement and action, in venues throughout the Greater NYC area.

As part of the upcoming festival, the festival will be presenting a film that explores themes related to parenting and disability with My everything directed by Anne-Sophie Bailly. 

SYNOPSIS
A tender and quietly gripping portrait of devotion, boundaries, and change. Mona has organized her entire world around caring for her adult son, Joël, who has an intellectual disability. When Joël’s partner unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Mona is forced to confront a future she never imagined—and a role beyond her control. Equal parts empathy and restraint, the film chronicles a family at an unforeseen crossroads, navigating love, autonomy, and the difficult process of letting go.

Film at Lincoln Center presents the first-ever U.S. theatrical release of Maurice Pialat’s La Maison des Bois, marking the world premiere of its luminous 4K restoration from Janus Films, accompanied by three essential Pialat features each approaching, from a distinct vantage point, the fixations that shape the director’s epic work.

Villa Albertine and Unifrance are pleased to unveil the 2026 Young French Cinema selection, featuring six acclaimed French films still awaiting U.S. distribution. From intimate auteur stories to socially engaged dramas, these bold new works spotlight the most exciting voices in contemporary French cinema, with women directors behind five of the six films. Available à la carte, the program invites art-house theaters, festivals, universities, and cultural organizations nationwide to bring today’s best French films to their audiences.

FRAME Advanced Tech is the 1st training session of the 2026 edition of the FRAME training programme, executed by INA (French National Audiovisual Institute), with the support of FIAT/IFTA and EBU Academy, and co-funded by the Creative Europe MEDIA programme of the European Commission. FRAME Advanced Tech 2026 will be held in Paris at INA’s headquarter next June.

For who?: All European and international professionals working in the audiovisual archives field, and aimed primarily at professionals already mastering fundamentals of audiovisual archiving, willing to update and deepen their knowledge

Training programme: Audiovisual archiving technical and technological topics (access topics will be covered by the FRAME Advanced Access session next year) 

Dates: 5 days, 15-19 June 2026

Deadline to apply: April 19