Synopsis

Set in 1931 French-colonized Martinique, this poignant coming-of-age story follows eleven-year-old José. A bright, curious boy, he is being raised by his grandmother, M’man Tine, who dreams of a better future for him beyond the harsh realities of life working on the sugar cane plantation. As José navigates poverty, racism, and the enduring trauma of slavery, he also finds in education a liberative outlet. Filmmaker Euzhan Palcy’s lyrical direction blends historical truth with emotional intimacy and a touch of humor, capturing the lush Caribbean landscape alongside the dignity of its people.

Rich in cultural authenticity and political depth, Sugar Cane Alley was a “four-star” favorite of famed Chicago critic Roger Ebert, who praised it as a “smart, sometimes hard-edged story that earns its moments of sentiment.” Both a tender tribute to maternal love and a defiant cry for justice, the film remains an essential cinematic work that honors the voices of the oppressed while celebrating the unbreakable spirit of hope. This 4K restoration of Palcy’s 1983 masterpiece is a cinematic gift for a new generation.

Awards Event

At this screening, director and writer Euzhan Palcy will receive the Festival’s Black Perspectives Tribute and Career Achievement Award.

Pioneering filmmaker Euzhan Palcy has set the world ablaze with a decades-long body of visionary work, shattering barriers in global cinema and inspiring a generation of storytellers. In 1983, she made history with Sugar Cane Alley, becoming the first Black woman to win both the Silver Lion and a César Award—France’s highest film honor—for Best First Film. She continued to break ground in Hollywood with A Dry White Season (1989), directing Marlon Brando to his final Oscar nomination and becoming the first Black woman to direct a major U.S. studio film. She received an honorary Oscar in 2022.

Synopsis

Bouchra, a coyote, is a queer Moroccan filmmaker based in New York City, navigating love and work in a world populated by other animal friends and family, including her hot ex-girlfriend, a cow, her best friend, a lizard, and her mom, Aicha, a coyote who lives back home in Casablanca. While Bouchra is finding her way in Manhattan, she has never resolved her mother’s lack of acceptance of her sexuality. It’s not that Bouchra has never come out; it’s that despite their closeness, her mom simply refuses to talk about it.

Brought to life in 3D animation, filmmaking team Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, known for their 2020 lockdown art sensation 2 Lizards, have crafted a unique animated docu-fiction hybrid that is profoundly intimate, light-hearted, and touching, with a quirky surrealist edge. So what if they’re cool animals? Bouchra is a universal story of immigrant life, family conflict, and queer identity.

Synopsis

“There’s Potemkin, Citizen Kane, and this…Godard’s first film,” film critic J. Hoberman once wrote about the French New Wave classic. In his audacious debut feature, the filmmaking infant terrible broke the rules of cinema to create something that remains just as fresh, funny, and innovative today. Influenced by American noir and Hollywood gangster films, the plot goes something like this: Small-time crook Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo, doing his best Bogart) steals a car and murders a policeman. While on the run, he reconnects with old flame newspaper-seller Patricia (Jean Seberg, in classic pixie-girl mode) and tries to convince her to go on the lam with him.

But what is it really about? Truth, lies, love, desire, masculinity, ennui, existentialism. Along with Miles Davis and the Beats, Breathless helped bring about the birth of cool, breaking open film form with its revolutionary use of jump-cuts and improvisational energy and influencing generations of filmmakers from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater.

Screening in 35mm.

Synopsis

A feature film in the form of a triptych. The three stories all concern the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent (or parents), and each other.

Synopsis

In a remote hamlet nestled in the Alps at the turn of the 20th century, idealistic schoolteacher Aimée arrives determined to educate her promising charges and rid the community of its superstitious beliefs. Met with wariness by the village elders, Aimée perseveres, doing her best to adapt to local life and briefly finding a sense of connection with two young men. A single night of passion coincides with portents of doom, and soon, unexplained disappearances hint at further calamity.

Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo Prize, given to an emerging French filmmaker whose work  demonstrates a spirit of innovation, Louise Hémon brings her documentarian’s eye to this unpredictable period drama, crafting a slow-burn tale rich in atmosphere. Sequences illuminated only by candles, lanterns, or fires punctuate the darkness that blankets the village, while a percussive score featuring both violin and vocal arrangements amplifies a sense of dread as The Girl in the Snow rushes toward its chilling conclusion.