THE WALTER READE THEATER

On Set with French Cinema

Claire Denis and Olivier Assayas in person!

Nov 2 & 14, 2004

Left: Olivier Assayas

Presented in collaboration with Unifrance and the French Film Office / Unifrance USA and the French Cultural Services.

On Set with French Cinema is a new program through which filmmaking students in America have the chance to attend master classes with leading French film artists. As part of this project, each invited artist will also participate in a public screening and discussion of their work at the Walter Reade Theater.

Tickets: $10 general public; $6 Film Society members



Claire Denis will introduce her film, FRIDAY NIGHT, an audience and critical favorite that premiered at the 2002 New York Film Festival. Denis tells the story of one night in the unsettled life of Laure (Valerie Lemercier). After packing up all her possessions before vacating her own apartment and moving in with her boyfriend, Laure gets stuck in a traffic jam of epic proportions. As she sits and waits, she meets a handsome stranger (Vincent Lindon), leading to an encounter as brief as it is ultimately mysterious. Intensely erotic and carefully observed, FRIDAY NIGHT is a lyrical ode to the city of Paris, to unexpected pleasures, and to freedom of the soul.
Tue Nov 2: 6

Writer-director Olivier Assayas will introduce his justly celebrated IRMA VEP (NYFF 1996). A dark and mysterious comedy about the perils of modern moviemaking (and, by extension, virtually any collective enterprise), Assayas’s funny, moving film is also a droll meditation on the state of cinema as an art form. Assayas pays homage to the great Feuillade's silent serial Les Vampires by imagining a contemporary remake-in-progress, with Hong Kong superstar Maggie Cheung, playing herself, in the role originated by silent icon Musidora. With a harrowingly funny performance by New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Leaud as the director.
Sun Nov 14: 7:30

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