Strange Desire: The Films of Claire Denis

AFG Presents at the Club (AKUMB, 40 Tumanyan Str.)
December 3, 2019 – January 28, 2020 Program
Strange Desire: The Films of Claire Denis

One of a handful of filmmakers who can credibly lay claim to the title of World’s Greatest Living Director, Claire Denis creates films that speak as much through words as they do through movement, rhythm, and texture. Profound and empathetic studies of outsiderhood, immigrant alienation, the ravages of colonialism, and the mysteries of love and desire, her films are not so much watched as experienced in a full-sensory head-rush of sound and image. Claire Denis is a singular cinematic mood-maker.

Programs are free of charge, but seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.
Films are screened in original language with English subtitles.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 20:00
White Material
2009, France / Cameroon, R, 105 min, Drama / War, BR
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Lambert, Isaach De Bankolé
In White Material, the great contemporary French filmmaker Claire Denis, known for her restless, intimate dramas, introduces an unforgettably crazed character. Played by a ferocious Isabelle Huppert, Maria is an entitled white woman living in Africa, desperately unwilling to give up her family’s crumbling coffee plantation despite the civil war closing in on her. Created with Denis’ signature full-throttle visual style, which places the viewer at the center of the maelstrom, White Material is a gripping evocation of the death throes of European colonialism and a fascinating look at a woman lost in her own mind.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 22:00
Vendredi soir (Friday Night)
2002, France, R, 90 min, Drama / Romance, DVD
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Valérie Lemercier, Vincent Lindon, Hélène de Saint-Père
Having packed up her possessions to move in with her lover, Laure is more unsettled than she appears. Needing to get out and have a change of scenery, she jumps in her car to go to have dinner with friends--only to become stuck in a terrible traffic jam. Laure completely forgot about the mass transit strike that has thrown the city into chaos. But Laure feels good in her car, the only place she has for herself right now. As she takes in the sights and sounds around her--the blare of horns and arguments, the shimmer of lights and camaraderie--Laure notices a calm and self-assured stranger, Jean, approach her car. Soon thereafter, she opens her car door door to the man who--that night--will change her life.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020 at 20:00
Un beau soleil intérieur (Let the Sunshine In)
2017, France / Belgium, R, 95 min, Comedy / Drama / Romance, BR
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Philippe Katerine
Two luminaries of French cinema, Claire Denis and Juliette Binoche, unite for the first time in this piercing look at the elusive nature of true love, and the extent to which we are willing to betray ourselves in its pursuit. In a richly layered performance, Binoche plays Isabelle, a successful painter in Paris whose apparent independence belies what she desires most: real romantic fulfillment. Isabelle reveals deep wells of yearning, vulnerability, and resilience as she tumbles into relationships with all the wrong men. Shot in burnished tones by Denis’s longtime collaborator Agnès Godard and featuring a mischievous appearance by Gérard Depardieu, Let the Sunshine In finds bleak humor in a cutting truth: we are all, no matter our age, fools for love.

Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at 20:00
High Life
2018, UK / France / Germany / Poland, R, 113 min, Adventure / Drama / Mystery, BR
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin
Takes place beyond the solar system in a future that seems like the present. About a group of criminals who accept a mission in space to become the subjects of a human reproduction experiment. They find themselves in the most unimaginable situation after a storm of cosmic rays hit the ship.

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Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 20:00
Chocolat
1988, France / West Germany / Cameroon, PG-13, 105min, Drama, DVD
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet
A young French woman returns to the vast silence of West Africa to contemplate her childhood days in a colonial outpost in Cameroon. Her strongest memories are of the family's houseboy, Protee - a man of great nobility, intelligence and beauty - and the intricate nature of relationships in a racist society.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 20:00
Beau travail
1999, France, R, 92 min, Drama / War, DVD
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin
This film focuses on ex-Foreign Legion officer, Galoup, as he recalls his once glorious life, leading troops in the Gulf of Djibouti. His existence there was happy, strict and regimented, but the arrival of a promising young recruit, Sentain, plants the seeds of jealousy in Galoup's mind. He feels compelled to stop him from coming to the attention of the commandant who he admires, but who ignores him. Ultimately, his jealousy leads to the destruction of both Sentain and himself.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019 at 20:00
35 rhums (35 Shots of Rum)
2008, France /Germany, R, 100 min, Drama, DVD
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Nicole Dogué
Widely hailed as one of the best films of 2009, the latest from the renowned director of Beau Travail, Claire Denis' sublime 35 Shots of Rum is the moving story of a father and daughter whose close-knit, tender relationship is disrupted by a handsome young suitor. Sumptuously filmed and featuring an evocative score by the Tindersticks, 35 Shots of Rum casts a lovely spell unlike any other movie you've seen.

Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 20:00
Les salauds (Bastards)
2013, France / Germany, R, 100 min, Drama / Romance, BR
Director: Claire Denis
Stars: Vincent Lindon, Chiara Mastroianni, Julie Bataille
Supertanker captain Marco Silvestri is called back urgently to Paris. His sister Sandra is desperate - her husband has committed suicide, the family business has gone under, her daughter is spiralling downwards. Sandra holds powerful businessman Edouard Laporte responsible. Marco moves into the building where Laporte has installed his mistress and her son. But he hasn't planned for Sandra's secrets, which muddy the waters...