The Yale French Department Ciné-Club, organized by Simon Reignier and Loïc Jan, and funded by Moliere and Co. Fund in memory of June Beckelman Guicharnaud is reinventing itself this year to offer a decidedly new and experimental experience. Each film presenting a different perspective around a shared theme, will challenge the way we see and think about cinema by moving beyond traditional formats to explore alternative forms and highlight today’s artists. The works, which engage with contemporary social issues shaping our societies, will be enriched by discussions, sometimes with guest speakers in attendance.Screenings are open to everyone in the Yale community. Films are shown in French with English subtitles.

We are thrilled to continue our Ciné-Club with Mati Diop’s Dahomey, winner of the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. In this poetic and political documentary, Mati Diop revisits the complex history of colonial restitution. Thousands of royal artifacts of Dahomey, a West African kingdom, were taken by French colonists in the 19th century for collection and display in Paris. Centuries later, a fraction returned to their home in modern-day Benin. This dramatized documentary follows the journey of 26 of the treasures as told by cultural art historians, embattled university students, and one of the repatriated statues himself.

Andrew Curran, the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities at Wesleyan University, is a scholar of eighteenth-century France and a non-fiction writer. His journalistic writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Guardian, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Paris Review, El País, Folha de S. Paolo, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also the author or editor of six books. His most recent book, Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson  is appearing

Please join Us for the First Screening of the French Ciné-Club -L’Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane’s Story) by Boris Lojkine - Thursday, Oct. 2nd @ 4:30 pm @ HQ L01

The Yale French Department Movie Nights, organized by Simon Reignier and Loïc Jan, and funded by Moliere and Co. Fund in memory of June Beckelman Guicharnaud is reinventing itself this year to offer a decidedly new and experimental experience. Each film presenting a different perspective around a shared theme, will challenge the way we see and think about cinema by moving beyond traditional formats to explore alternative forms and highlight today’s artists. The works, which engage with contemporary social issues shaping our societies, will be enriched by discussions, sometimes with guest speakers in attendance.

Screenings are open to everyone in the Yale community. Films will be screened in French with English subtitles.

We’re excited to kick off our fall-semester movie nights with the theme “Révolte”, Thursday (Oct. 2^nd @ 4:30 pm @ HQ L01 with a showing of Boris Lojkine’s L’Histoire de Souleymane.

L’Histoire de Souleymane is a film about immigration in France today. It follows Souleymane, a man from Guinea, who works as a food delivery rider in Paris while preparing for his asylum interview. The film shows the harsh conditions faced by undocumented immigrants: endless shifts on an e-bike, police controls, and the brutal weight of the asylum system.

The film premiered at Cannes 2024 in the Un Certain Regard section, where it won three major awards: the Jury Prize, the Best Actor Prize for Abou Sangaré, and the FIPRESCI Critics’ Prize. 

It’s a clear, direct, and urgent look at immigration, bureaucracy, and survival in today’s Europe.

We hope to see you there for an engaging evening of cinema and conversation!  All are welcome.

With best wishes, and excitement ahead of Thursday,

Simon Reignier & Loïc Jan, ENS French lectors

Lecture Title: “Proust, Antisemitism, and Jewish Humor.”

Elisabeth Ladenson is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and General Editor of Romanic Review.

Her research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century French and comparative literature, gender studies, and cultural history. She is the author of Proust’s Lesbianism (Cornell, 1999) and Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita (Cornell, 2007). She has published widely in journals including Yale French Studies, The Yale Review, and The London Review of Books, and is currently working on a book titled Proust in the Margins: Jew, Homosexual, Snob.