French Cinema Series
Fall 2019
Rubenstein Arts Center, Duke University
A tribute to the filmmaker Agnes Varda and a mini-retrospective of the works of Olivier Assayas highlight this semester's French Cinema Series.
Sponsored by the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI) and the Department of Romance Studies.
Thursday, Sep 5 @ 7pm
"A Faithful Man" (Louis Garrel, 2019)
Nine years after his wife left him for his best friend, journalist Abel (Louis Garrel) gets back together with his recently widowed old flame Marianne (Laetitia Casta), who, if her morbid young son is to be believed, has a thing for poisoning men. A beguiling bedroom farce and Nouvelle Vague sendup.
Thursday, Oct 3 @ 7pm
"Documenteur" (Agnes Varda, 1981)
The late, great Varda deemed Documenteur her favorite of her own films. A deeply moving, semi-autobiographical portrayal of a newly single French mother and son (played by Varda’s own son Mathieu) who struggle to find a home in the unglamorous underworlds of Los Angeles.
Wednesday, Oct 9 @ 7pm
"Irma Vep" (Olivier Assayas, 1996)
Olivier Assayas’s live-wire international breakthrough stars a magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself: a Hong Kong action movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade’s classic 1915 crime serial Les vampires.
Thursday, Oct 10 @ 7pm
"Summer Hours" (Olivier Assays, 2008)
Three siblings must decide what to do with the country estate and objects they’ve inherited from their mother. From this simple story, Assayas creates an exquisitely nuanced drama about the material of globalized modern living..
Friday, Oct 11 @ 7pm
"Clouds of Sils Maria" (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
A kaleidoscopic film experience blending documentary, narrative, and experimental forms, INAATE/SE/ transcends linear colonized history to explore how an ancient Ojibway prophecy resonates through the generations in the Khalils' indigenous community within Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Screening with their short film, The Violence of a Civilization without Secrets (2017).
–Q&A w/ filmmakers Adam and Zack Khalil
[ Back to Screen/Society Fall 2019 Schedule ]
Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public.
Parking Info: https://artscenter.duke.edu/parking/