Godard, seul le cinéma (Godard Cinema)
Cyril Leuthy, MP4, 100 min
France, 2023 (French)

Official Selection, 2022 Venice International Film Festival
Wisconsin premiere

Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and a symbol for the era’s progressive and anti-war youth. One of the founders of the French New Wave, a political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, and film theorist and critic with a career spanning 62 years and 140 films, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time. This documentary offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the themes that obsessed him.

Presented as part of the Albertine Cinémathèque program & co-sponsored by the Alliance française de Milwaukee

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Dounia, le grand pays blanc (Dounia, the Great White North)
Marya Zarif / André Kadi, MP4, 51 min
Québec, 2025 (French)

2024 New York International Children Film Festival
Midwest premiere

Now settled in Canada after fleeing Syria in Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo (FFF2024), Dounia and her grandparents slowly get to know the new home that has welcomed them: its intense seasons, its special foods, its languages. Dounia’s grandparents keep their Syrian traditions alive at home, while her new friends share traditions of their own, like Rosalie’s French-Canadian lifestyle or Miguizou’s vast indigenous folklore, which help her connect in unique ways with her father who remained in Aleppo.

Co-sponsored by the Lynden Sculpture Garden, the Alliance française de Milwaukee & the Québec Government Office in Chicago

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Le sang et la boue (Of Mud and Blood)
Jean-Gabriel Leynaud, H264, 90 min
France / Congo (DRC), 2025 (French, Swahili, English)

Best International Documentary, 2025 Durban International Film Festival
Midwest premiere

Numbi, a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo mountains, lies at the heart of our modern world. Here, workers mine the coltan that will find its way, legally or not, into much of our technology. For decades this grey gold has been the cause of bitter conflicts and exploitation. Every inhabitant lives with the illusory hope of enjoying for themselves the riches of the Congo. Shocking and deeply moving, the film reveals the hardships and trials of a story from which we must not look away.

Co-sponsored by 51���� Student Involvement, the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, and the Office of Sustainability

Talkback with Lindsay Frost (Office of Sustainability)

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Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot (Meeting With Pol Pot)
Rithy Panh, Blu-ray, 112 min
France / Cambodia, 2024 (French, Cambodian)

Official Selection, Cannes Premiere, 2024 Cannes Film Festival
Wisconsin premiere

Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) – 1978. Three journalists are invited by the Khmer Rouge to conduct an exclusive interview with the regime’s leader, Pol Pot. The country seems idyllic, but behind the Potemkin village presented to the journalists, the Khmer Rouge regime is in decline and the war with Vietnam looms at the border. The regime is looking for culprits, secretly carrying out a large-scale genocide. Under the eyes of the journalists, the beautiful picture cracks, revealing the horror. Their journey progressively turns into a nightmare.

Presented as part of the Albertine Cinémathèque program & co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science & the Department of History

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Vingt Dieux (Holy Cow)
Louise Courvoisier, MP4, 90 min
France, 2024 (French)

Winner of the Youth Award, Un Certain Regard, 2024 Cannes Film Festival

After the tragic death of his father, 18 year-old Totone finds himself with daunting new responsibilities, looking after his younger sister and their failing family farm in the Jura region of France. He takes on yet another challenge when he enters a competition for the best Comté cheese made in this western part of the French Alps. A “verité” look at the hardscrabble life of French agriculture, it is simultaneously a moving love story and above all an ode to the love of cheese.

Presented as part of the Albertine Cinémathèque program & co-sponsored by Women’s and Gender Studies

PG This film contains explicit material.

Talkback with Leah Wilson (Women’s and Gender Studies)

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Des “terroristes” à la retraite (“Terrorists” in Retirement)
Mosco Levi Boucault, DCP, 71 min
France, 1983 (French)

1983 Cannes Film Festival & 2020 Cinéma du Réel

Too controversial to be shown on French TV when first released, the film follows seven surviving comrades of the executed members, found guilty of “terrorism”, from the immigrant section of the French Resistance during World War II. The documentary provoked unsettling debates about how the group was captured, and about why the French establishment (and history books) never fully embraced the immigrant and Jewish fighters who were the backbone of armed resistance in Paris. The film provides a powerful corrective to myths concerning the French Resistance.

Presented as part of the Albertine Cinémathèque program & co-sponsored by the Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies & the Department of History

Talkback with Carolyn Eichner (Department of History)

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Les fantômes (Ghost Trail)
Jonathan Millet, DCP, 108 min
France, 2024 (Arabic, French, English, Turkish)

Official Selection: Critics’ Week at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival
Wisconsin premiere

Justice knows no borders for Hamid, who has taken refuge in France after being detained and tortured by the Assad regime in Syria. Exiled and undercover, the mild-mannered literature professor now works as part of a secret group pursuing Assad’s enforcers, who have fled Syria and have assumed new identities in Europe. One of these men is the guard responsible for the unspeakable abuse Hamid endured. Tactfully reckoning with recent history, the filmmaker delivers a tense espionage thriller that explores the opaque relationship between justice and revenge.

Presented as part of the Albertine Cinémathèque program & co-sponsored by the Department of World Languages and Cultures & MALLT

Talkback with Fahed Masalkhi (Arabic Program Coordinator)

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La princesse Mandane (Princess Mandane)
Germaine Dulac, DCP, 74 min
France, 1928 (Silent)

Étienne is engaged to Annette, a secretary in the factory where he works. Fantasizing about daring adventures, he decides to leave everything behind to go to a foreign land, Mingrelia. The country is governed by Princess Mandane who has been made a prisoner in her own palace. Étienne sees an opportunity to prove himself by rescuing the damsel in distress, but Germaine Dulac has other plans for them.

With live piano accompaniment by Renato Umali.

Co-sponsored by the Film Studies program

Talkback with Tami Williams (Film Studies program, Department of English).

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Aux bords de la guerre, Ariane Mnouchkine et le Théâtre du Soleil à Kyiv (Kyiv Theater, an Island of Hope)
Duccio Bellugi-Vannuccini / Thomas Briat, DCP, 59 min
France / Ukraine, 2024 (French, English, Ukrainian)

Wisconsin premiere

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought back dark memories of 1930s Europe for Ariane Mnouchkine, the 84-year-old theater director and founder of the prestigious Théâtre du Soleil in Paris. Against this backdrop and in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance, Mnouchkine puts together a theater workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine. The film is an essential and timely exploration of what it means to create art in times of war.

Presented as part of the Albertine Cinémathèque program & co-sponsored by the Lynden Sculpture Garden

Talkback with Kim Khaira (Lynden Sculpture Garden) and Karina Tweedell (Wisconsin Ukrainians)

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La venue de l’avenir (Colors of Time)
Cédric Klapisch, DCP, 126 min
France, 2025 (French)

Official Selection, 2025 Cannes Festival
Midwest premiere

Brought together by the unexpected inheritance of a house in Normandy, four cousins discover they share a mysterious family history. In 1895, their ancestor Adèle had left her hometown for Paris and discovered a city in the midst of an industrial and cultural revolution, bustling with new-found avant-garde creativity, with the rise of photography and Impressionism in painting and music. As her descendants retrace her steps, they unravel Adèle’s surprising past. The two timelines, one set in 1895, the other in 2024, intertwine and collide, leaving everyone’s future forever changed.

Co-sponsored by the Music Department & the Alliance française de Milwaukee

Talkback with Bernard Zinck (Music Department, Peck School of the Arts)

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