Love Is My Profession + The Snow Was Black
Best known for his Inspector Maigret policiers, the incredibly prolific Georges Simenon was more daring and perverse in his romans durs—nearly one hundred psychological novels that more directly exposed the dark underside of humanity. FRENCH 24 kicks off with two of his best…
Love Is My Profession / En cas de malheur
6:30 PM First, when a noted barrister (Jean Gabin) decides to defend a comely shoplifter (Brigitte Bardot), the stage is set for a scandalous May-December affair that upends the lawyer’s marriage and kindles a dangerously intense reaction from the girl’s estranged boyfriend. Director Claude-Autant Lara keeps the love story and its escalating impact in sharp focus as the story moves inexorably toward an incendiary conclusion. LOVE IS PROFESSION was a sensation when it was screened at FRENCH 1 in 2014—this might be your last chance to see it on a big screen for quite some time… (1958, dir. Claude Autant-Lara, 122m)
The Snow Was Black / La Neige était sale
8:55 PM It’s followed by the bleak tale of the doomed-from-birth Frank (Daniel Gélin in an icy, haunted performance), a young Frenchman drawn into a life of nihilistic debauchery by a series of macabre circumstances. Expatriate Argentine director Luis Saslavsky is unsparing in his presentation of a young man slowly turned monstrous by his strange upbringing. THE SNOW WAS BLACK was a favorite of Tom Luddy, the long-time mastermind of the Telluride Film Festival. (1954, dir. Luis Saslavsky, 110m)
Midcentury Productions’ THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT ’24- Part One features 14 rarely seen films, adding to the astonishing rediscoveries that the series has been unearthing since 2014. Seven spectacular films—including a landmark screening of the 1934 version of France’s LES MISÉRABLES—are highlighted in the Big Roxie on October 3rd, 6th and 7th, while seven even deeper dives into “the lost continent” play in the Little Roxie screening room on October 4th and 5th.
► Sales for all-festival passes for Part One are now sold out. For the best currently available discount pricing, you are urged to consider purchasing our Big Roxie Pass that covers all seven films screening in the big theater Thursday, Sunday, and Monday for $60.
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