2024 UNI French Film Festival
It's a new winter of streaming!
All films are free, but advanced registration is required. See below for more information and trailers for this year's films.
Stream these French language films (subtitled in English) on your own computer, and join the Zoom discussion online. / Regardez les films en streaming (sous-titrés en anglais) sur votre ordinateur, puis participez aux visioconférences pour en discuter avec d'autres personnes.
Film discussions take place on Monday nights at 7:00 p.m. after the streaming week. Join the conversation either in person at ScholarWorks (Rod 301) or online via Zoom (separate Zoom registration required).
Monday, January 29: Les années super 8 / The Super 8 Years
Monday, February 5: Colette et Justin / Colette and Justin **Discussion featuring director Alain Kassanda
Monday, February 12: Le lycéen / Winter Boy
Monday, February 19: Pacifiction
Monday, February 26: Serre-moi fort / Hold Me Tight
Monday, March 4: La Reine Margot / Queen Margot
This festival is made possible by the Department of Languages & Literatures, the French Program Fund, and Albertine Cinémathèque (a program of FACE Foundation and Villa Albertine) with support from the CNC / Centre National du Cinema, and SACEM / Fonds Culturel Franco-Américain.
Les années super 8 / The Super 8 Years
The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following, opens a treasure trove with this delicate journey into her family’s memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 – when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went – this portrait takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad.
Join the film discussion on Mon. Jan. 29 at 7:00 p.m.!
Colette et Justin / Colette and Justin
Born in Kinshasa and living in Paris, filmmaker Alain Kassanda embodies the classic immigrant dual identity: in the Democratic Republic of Congo he is seen as French, while in France he is seen as Congolese. Kassanda convinces his grandparents—Colette and Justin—to sit for a series of interviews that become an evocative, poetic and thoughtful meditation on the intersection of political and family history, and the multi-generational destructive reach of colonialism.
Don't miss the discussion with director Alain Kassanda on Monday, February 5 at 7:00 PM!
Le lycéen / Winter Boy
17-year-old Lucas (Paul Kircher) is drifting through his last year of boarding school until the sudden death of his father strips away everything he took for granted. Left filled with anger and despair, he visits his older brother in Paris, seeking comfort in the new city. Kircher's portrayal of Lucas won the Silver Shell for Best Leading Performance and garnered Lumières and César award nominations.
Join the film discussion on Mon. Feb. 12 at 7:00 p.m.!
Pacifiction
On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is a calculating man with flawless manners who is able to navigate between the high-end "establishment" and the shady venues where he mingles with the locals. But now he faces a persistent rumor: the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing.
Join the film discussion on Mon. Feb. 19 at 7:00 p.m.!
Serre-moi fort / Hold Me Tight
In Hold Me Tight, Vicky Krieps (Bergman Island) gives another riveting performance as Clarisse, a woman on the run from her family for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. Mathieu Amalric’s sixth feature as director is a virtuosic, daringly fluid portrait of a woman in crisis that alternates between Clarisse’s adventures on the road and scenes of her abandoned husband Marc (Arieh Worthalter) as he struggles to take care of their children at home. Amalric’s film keeps viewers uncertain as to the reality of what they’re seeing until the final moments of this moving, unpredictable, and richly rewarding family drama.
Join the film discussion on Mon. Feb. 26 at 7:00 p.m.!
La Reine Margot / Queen Margot
France, 1572. During an uneasy break in the wars of religion, Catholic King Charles IX concludes a marriage of state between his sister Margot (Isabelle Adjani) and the Protestant Huguenot King Henry of Navarre. But Margot’s Queen Mother is already plotting the attack on the Huguenots that would come to be known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Chéreau’s high-octane adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel begins in fifth gear and never lets up.
Join the film discussion on Mon. March 4 at 7:00 p.m.!