Past Events

Ben Hecht’s farce (based on his 1944 novel) plays on the frantic nature of early ’40s Hollywood-spectacle moviemaking by injecting it with an old-fashioned, behind-the-scenes murder mystery. When the lead actor of a Gone with the Wind–sized production turns up dead, a fast-talking—and star-studded—whodunit representative of the era begins to unfold.

A narrator begins reading Claude Ponti’s Mille secrets de poussins, but things don’t go as planned… Full of mischief, the poussins (chicks) have hidden themselves in the library and start popping out of the books to play tricks on him. Accompanied by animated videos and multimedia effects, the performer leads the audience into a playful world.

A narrator begins reading Claude Ponti’s Mille secrets de poussins, but things don’t go as planned… Full of mischief, the poussins (chicks) have hidden themselves in the library and start popping out of the books to play tricks on him. Accompanied by animated videos and multimedia effects, the performer leads the audience into a playful world.

Toi, moi, Tituba… is based on French philosopher Elsa Dorlin’s essay on Maryse Condé’s heroine Tituba. As a Black woman and so-called witch, Tituba gives a voice to those who are silenced by force. Inspired by this story, Dorothée Munyaneza uses her own body as an archive, and with composer Khyam Allami, presents a multiplicity of silenced voices and perspectives to revive memories and celebrate them through dance and music.

Idle-rich Ronald (Jean-Claude Brialy) is shamed by the harmless antics of student Arthur (Charles Belmont) and resolves to get even with him, enlisting sparky Ambroisine (Bernadette Lafont) to assist. Arthur falls for her—and the duo’s deception—resulting in a typically freewheeling Nouvelle Vague jaunt but with substantial sinister vibes.

Dancer and choreographer Liz Santoro recounts her life onstage. Some memories are real, others are generated by artificial intelligence; some movements originate from her body, others are fabricated by an algorithm trained on her dancing. This Is Unreal constructs a hybrid world which asks: Where does the body end and the machine begin?

A digital reconstruction by Michael Witt of a remarkable montage film created by Godard at the 1981 Rotterdam Film Festival from his film Sauve qui peut (la vie) and reels from four other films: Old and New (aka The General Line) by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori Alexandrov (1929), Cops by Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton (1922), La Terra Trema by Luchino Visconti (1948), and Man of Marble by Andrzej Wajda (1977). This montage film, which Godard titled Sauve la vie (qui peut), was screened just once and seen by only a handful of people. It constituted an extension of his wide-ranging experimentation with the juxtaposition of film reels during his exploratory lectures on cinema history in Montreal and Rotterdam in 1978 and 1980-1981, respectively, and anticipated his later videographic montage practice, which would culminate in Histoire(s) du cinéma.

Contrary to what one might conclude based on how few plays Godard adapted as films, he was deeply interested in the theater and had numerous unrealized theatrical projects over his career. René Allio, whom Godard interviewed for Cahiers, ventured into filmmaking from theater, and his first feature La Vieille dame indigne (The Shameless Old Lady) is a beautifully observed, gently subversive adaptation of a Brecht short story, featuring Sylvie (real name Louise Pauline Mainguené) as a widow determined to enjoy her remaining years to the full. Godard’s wide-ranging exploration of theater in the 1960s culminated in La Chinoise (1967), a film that exemplifies his desire in this period to combine and blend theatrical and cinematic forms. ‘One should make theater in the cinema’, as he put it, ‘mix things up’.

A Latin expression, literally meaning “in accordance with one’s wishes or until satiety,” Ad Libitum is a piece about the desire to create, to step outside oneself, to expand. Dancer Simon Le Borgne and musician Ulysse Zangs explore the idea of molting, of emptying yourself through dance and live music. Driven by a musical score of drums, electric guitar and synths, the performance expresses the need to change skin and shed all substance, as well as the need to embody yourself, to fill your own container.