One of Paris’ first queer bars is commemorated in this strikingly composed and visually moody short. Customers recount mysterious rumors about the bar’s Jewish-Algerin owner, enjoy the bar’s infamous cabaret, and canoodle in its dark corners as an obsessive policeman surveils the bar from across the street.
This film screens as part of the Shorts 2: Animation – Desires program.
Late one night, Aly calls the police from the passenger seat of a car racing along a deserted road. She feels she is in danger from Dary, the man in the driver’s seat whose behavior is becoming increasingly explosive. Anna fields the call, deftly decrypting Aly’s conversation with her “sister” and talking her through the unfolding nightmare. Dary is arrested, and an investigation is underway. Weeks go by, and tensions mount. Aly must figure out what it means to carry on. Anna becomes obsessed with Aly’s future. Dary must account for his actions.
An intelligent and provocative expansion of director Delphine Girard’s Oscar-nominated short of the same title, Through the Night turns the traditional thriller on its head, intertwining the paths and points of view of these three characters in the aftermath of a sexual assault. The film deftly navigates between the shifting perspectives and story lines to create a tense, 360-degree view that never loses sight of the trauma’s impact rippling out over time and across communities.
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Robert and Penelope Steiner Family Foundation
A reconstruction of a life through a series of encounters, this decades-spanning portrait of one woman’s romantic history from girlhood crush to middle-life heartbreak investigates the joy and pain of partnership. Liv, a filmmaker and the lead singer of a post-punk band, drifts through a cycle of love and separation, in search of someone or something — even she can’t grasp what, exactly — with a sense of optimism and self-aware irony.
Vulnerable, playful, and honest, this offbeat rom-com oozes with charisma in its montage and mise-en-scène, and is buoyed by original glitter-grunge music. But, much like the character of Liv herself, the delightful, wry exterior of this confessional film belies an inner depth that plumbs questions of intimacy, compatibility, and connection without the promise of answers or resolutions.
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Plenty of films have been made about adultery. But not many of them are rom-coms told from the perspective of the philandering woman. Sophia (Magalie Lépine Blondeau) is a philosophy professor whose relationship with nice guy Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) stimulates her mind — and that’s about it. Enter Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), a simple handyman who excites Sophia in all the ways her partner cannot. How can she choose between these two very different men, each of whom satisfies her in distinct ways?
Writer-director Monia Chokri asks a provocative question — can sexual and intellectual gratification co-exist in the same relationship? — in this seductive, playful story about having it all.
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Juliette Binoche stars alongside her real-life ex Benoît Magimel in this sumptuous romantic drama, about a famed gourmet (Magimel) in 1880s France whose twenty-year relationship with his private chef (Binoche) has mellowed into a soulmate bond. He desperately wants to marry her. She’s skeptical, preferring their current arrangement to a conventional partnership. The thing that keeps them together is their obsession with food: preparing it, eating it, talking about it. So what better way for him to convince her to settle down than to cook her a meal?
Director Anh Hung Tran (The Scent of Green Papaya) combines culinary and sensual delight in the tradition of the best cinematic “food porn,” opening with a 40-minute cooking sequence that’s as rich and mouthwatering as a pat of butter in a sizzling hot pan.
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Joseph and Mary Plauché
212 W Van Buren St., Suite 400
