LEXINGTON, Va. Jan. 15, 2024 — The Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, the Office of Global Education, and the Dean’s Academic Speakers Program at Virginia Military Institute present three French films as part of the 2024 Spring Albertine Cinémathèque film series.

Albertine Cinémathèque expands access to French cinema and supports film programming at American colleges and universities. All films will be shown in the Nichols Engineering Building auditorium. They are free, open to the public, and have English subtitles.  

The first film, “The Innocent” will be shown Tuesday, Jan. 23 at 7:45 p.m. Part crime thriller, part family farce, Louis Garrel’s “The Innocent” uses panache and pathos to show the dangerous lengths two men go, and the outlandish lies they tell, for the women they love. Abel is a museum educator and widower whose mother, Sylvie, marries Michel, one of her drama pupils in the local penitentiary. Once on parole, Michel attempts to start a legitimate life, with the suspicious Abel continually—and ineptly—spying on his stepfather until roped into one of the ex-con’s schemes. Garrel explores the comedic results of play-acting’s intrusion into real life, as well as real life’s comedic tendency to transform us into what we never thought we could be, but perhaps always were. 

The second film titled, “Corsage,” a drama made in 2022, will be shown Saturday morning, Feb. 10 at 9 a.m. Faced with a future of strict ceremony and royal duties, Empress Elisabeth of Austria rebels against her public image and comes up with a plan to protect her legacy. 

The last film, “Les 400 Coups,” a drama made in 1959, will be shown Monday, Feb. 26 at 7:45 p.m. It tells the story of a young Parisian boy, Antoine Doinel, who is neglected by his derelict parents, skips school, sneaks into movies, runs away from home, steals things, and tries (disastrously) to return them. Like most kids, he gets into more trouble for things he thinks are right than for his actual trespasses. Unlike most kids, he gets whacked with the big stick. He inhabits a Paris of dingy flats, seedy arcades, abandoned factories, and workaday streets, a city that seems big and full of possibilities only to a child’s eye. 

Albertine Cinematheque is a program of FACE Foundation and Villa Albertine, with support from the CNC / Centre National du Cinema, and SACEM / Fonds Culturel Franco-Américain.  

For more information, contact Col. Jeff Kendrick at kendrickjw@vmi.edu or 540-464-7067. 

Marianne Hause
Photos by Kelly Nye
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VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE