secrets, lies & betrayal

Francophone Films Festival

The mistress of a thug falls in love with a reformed criminal... A geisha experiences the return to Japan of the American officer she fell for and who has no idea they had a child together... A young man decides to find his lost foster brother and face the phantoms of the past... A divorced woman is ready to do anything to get her son back and escape the straightjacket imposed by her home country...

From Casque d’Or to Madame Butterfly, including Le Confessionnal and Goodbye Morrocco, this francophone film festival is an invitation to discover films from different times and places and surrender to the power of secrets, lies and  betrayal.

* All films in French with English subtitles

Screenings also on university campuses and at the Alliance Française du Manitoba.

Students and members of l'Alliance française enjoy the student discount ($8) by presenting their membership card at the CINEMATHEQUE box office. Click here to purchase advance tickets.

Screening Schedule

CINEMATHEQUE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22ND
7PM  |   L’Enfer (Torment)   Claude CHABROL  1993


This gripping film based on a rediscovered screenplay by Henri-Georges Clouzot is the story of a country hotel owner named Paul who becomes suspicious of his wife. Little by little his suspicions take shape and jealousy plunges him into an unfathomable purgatory of doubt and dementia.

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9PM  |   Le Mépris (Contempt)   Jean-Luc GODARD  1963


Godard’s subversive foray into commercial filmmaking is a star-studded Cinemascope epic which stars Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter torn between the demands of a proud European director (played by legendary director Fritz Lang), a crude and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for a new film version of “The Odyssey”.

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 23RD
7PM  |   Casque d’Or (Golden Helmet)   Jacques BECKER  1952


Jacques Becker, former assistant to Jean Renoir created one of the great classics of French cinema. After killing a man in a knife fight, a simple carpenter attempts to start a new life with a prostitute that he has fallen for, but when an old friend is implicated in the killing he feels obliged to turn himself in, leaving his beloved Marie in the hands of the duplicitous gangster who orchestrated the whole sordid affair.Beautifully photographed, expertly acted, and a thoroughly compelling fatalistic gem.

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9PM  |   Le Confessionnal   Robert LEPAGE  1995


Pierre Lamontagne travels to his hometown in Quebec after his father dies. There, he runs into his adoptive brother who desperately wishes to uncover the mysterious identity of his own biological father. They begin to investigate, which leads them back to 1952, with Alfred Hitchcock filming I Confess in the area amid a complex scandal involving the Lamontagne family, Marc’s pregnant mother and the Catholic Church.

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 24TH
3PM  |   Quai des Orfèvres   Henri-Georges CLOUZOT  1947

Set within the vibrant dance halls and crime corridors of 1940s Paris, the film follows an ambitious performer, her covetous husband and their devoted confidante as they attempt to cover one another’s tracks when a high-society acquaintance is murdered. Enter the Inspector whose seasoned instincts lead him down a circuitous path in this classic whodunit murder mystery. From Henri-Georges Clouzot, the great French director of The Wages of Fear and Les diaboliques.

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7PM  |   Jeune & Jolie (Young & Beautiful)   François OZON  2013

Acclaimed director François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women) has created an erotic tale of sexual awakening. After losing her virginity, 17-year-old budding beauty Isabelle takes up a secret life as a call girl, meeting her older gentlemen clients for sleazy hotel room trysts. Throughout, she remains curiously aloof, showing little interest in the encounters themselves or the money she makes, while Ozon slyly refrains from offering easy answers.

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ADDITIONAL FILMS SCREENED ON CAMPUSES
FREE ADMISSION AND OPEN TO EVERYONE

Goodbye Morocco Nadir MOKNECHE 2013
January 19^th  |   5pm – University of Winnipeg (3C28)
January 21^st  |   5pm – Université de Saint-Boniface (Salle 1234)
January 23^rd  |   12pm – University of Manitoba (Dafoe 160)...Maman est chez le coiffeur –  Léa POOL 2008

Lubna Azabal anchors a busy tangle of subplots Dounia, a Moroccan woman who is supervising the building of a beachside villa with her Balkans-born Spanish lover Dimitri. When their excavations uncover an ancient Christian fresco, Dounia spots the chance to make an instant fortune with an illicit act of art smuggling, which would allow her to kidnap her young son from her estranged husband and flee Morocco for good.  However, her plan are threatened by the ominous disappearance of one of her illegal West African workers, Gabriel, as well as the thwarted romantic urges of her former childhood friend turned faithful employee Ali.
 

La Rupture (The Breach)  Claude CHABROL 1970
January 20^th  |   5pm – University of Winnipeg (3C28)

Hélène (Stéphane Audran) is a good mother with a checkered past as a stripper and barmaid. Se divorces her ne’er-do-well husband after he attacks her and her son over breakfast. Her former in-laws blame her for causing her husband addiction and set out to remove their grandchild from Hélène’s custody. Thwarted by the courts, they hire a seedy penniless operative, Paul, to destroy her reputation. Paul moves into her rooming house and begins to insinuate himself into her life, hatching darker and more convoluted plots to implicate Helene in everything from drugs to a bizarre kidnapping plot.
 

L’Adversaire (The Adversary)  Nicole GARCIA 2002
January 19^th  |   5pm – Université de Saint-Boniface (Salle 1234)
January 22^nd  |   5pm – University of Winnipeg (3C28)

Surrounded by friends he’s known since his days at medical school, he is constantly talking about the latest developments in his field. His work often requires him to attend conferences in Switzerland, lectures at the University of Dijon and affluent discussions with colleagues at the World Health Organization in Geneva. He lives a charmed life. One day, the unimaginable happens. Jean-Marc murders his wife, his children, and his parents and then commits suicide. What the investigation reveals is even more difficult to believe.

Unemployed, he drives around aimlessly, sitting at the W.H.O.’s cafeteria, sneaking into lectures and stealing documentation on the latest research to keep up his charade. Pretending to invest family’s and friends’ money, he has been living off their savings for years. For the last eighteen years, Jean-Marc’s entire life has been a fabrication. A tragic story of a man, who rather than have those closest to him know the truth or face it himself, he chose the lie… and death.

...Maman est chez le coiffeur (Mommy's at the Hairdresser)  Léa POOL 2008

January 21^st  |   7pm – Alliance Française du Manitoba

Summer 1966. It's time to enjoy the summer holiday, total freedom. Teenage Élise discovers that the sudden departure of her mother completely disrupts the family. Her brother Coco seeks solace in the garage, building a super racing car. Her youngest brother Benoît throws himself into his own inner world. The father seems absolutely knocked out by the situation. Élise decides to take control of her family, in an eloquent attempt to save them. With the assistance of flourishing nature around her, she stands on the threshold of an incomparable summer.