Presented by the French Studies program, Human Rights program, Gender and Sexuality Studies program, Literature program, Center for Moving Image Arts, and the Division of Languages and Literature.
Spring 2026 Films
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February 12, 2026
7:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
Albertine French Film Festival: Disco Boy
Director: Giacomo Abbruzzese, 2023, 1h31 min.
February 12, 2026This is a screening of a feature debut from Italian director Giacomo Abbruzzese. After a painful journey through Europe, Alex, a Belarusian, joins the Foreign Legion in France clinging to the hope of a European identity. Jomo, a Nigerian, fights for the survival and durability of his people in the Niger Delta and is ready to die to defend his ideas. These two young people who are sacrificed and smashed together will, against all odds, meet and their destinies will merge across borders, bodies, life, and death. All films will be introduced in English and shown with English subtitles.
7:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
“[A] neon-dream parable cast against the shadow of sweeping global forces.” – The New York Times
Click here to view the film's trailer.
This festival is supported by a grant from Albertine Cinémathèque, part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine–The French Institute for Culture and Education, and Albertine Foundation. It is made possible with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC).
Sponsored by: French Studies, Human Rights, CMIA, GSS, Literature, and the Division of Languages & Literature
Contact: Gabriella Lindsay
E-mail: [email protected]
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February 26, 2026
7:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
Albertine French Film Festival: Dahomey
Director: Mati Diop, 2024, 1h08 min.
February 26, 2026Winner of the coveted Golden Bear prize at the 2024 Berlinale, Dahomey is an immersive and astounding work of art from Mati Diop – director of the award-winning feature, Atlantics. Delving into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution, this acclaimed documentary is a poetic look at a seldom-discussed history. The film takes as its subject 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey, which, along with thousands of others, were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. As these artifacts are due to leave Paris to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin, Diop questions how they should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence.
7:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
“At a time when many documentaries stretch into episode after episode, there’s something refreshing about one that doesn’t aspire to be all-encompassing... Dahomey is at once haunting and humble.” – The Wall Street Journal
Click here to view the film's trailer.
This festival is supported by a grant from Albertine Cinémathèque, part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine–The French Institute for Culture and Education, and Albertine Foundation. It is made possible with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC). All films will be introduced in English and shown with English subtitles.
Sponsored by: French Studies, Human Rights, CMIA, GSS, Literature, and the Division of Languages & Literature
Contact: Gabriella Lindsay
E-mail: [email protected]
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March 12, 2026
7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
Albertine French Film Festival: Soundtrack to a Coup d'État
Director: Johan Grimonprez, 2024, 2h30 min.
March 12, 2026Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba.
7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
Click here to view the film's trailer.
This festival is supported by a grant from Albertine Cinémathèque, part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine–The French Institute for Culture and Education, and Albertine Foundation. It is made possible with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC). All films will be introduced in English and shown with English subtitles.
Sponsored by: French Studies, Human Rights, CMIA, GSS, Literature, and the Division of Languages & Literature
Contact: Gabriella Lindsay
E-mail: [email protected]
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March 26, 2026
7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Starr Cinema, Upstate Films, Rhinebeck, NY
Albertine French Film Festival: Les fantômes
Director: Jonathan Millet, 2024, 1h46 min.
March 26, 2026Two years after being released from Syrian jail, Hamid (break out star Adam Bessa) is making ends meet as a construction worker in the French city of Strasbourg, where, haunted by the memory of his imprisonment, the young man searches tirelessly for the man who tortured him, determined to get his revenge--but what's the real price of vengeance for the person seeking it? Inspired by true events, Jonathan Millet's deeply researched thriller excavates the too-little-examined moral dilemmas of today’s political landscape.
7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Starr Cinema, Upstate Films, Rhinebeck, NY
Click here to view the film's trailer.
This festival is supported by a grant from Albertine Cinémathèque, part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine–The French Institute for Culture and Education, and Albertine Foundation. It is made possible with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC). All films will be introduced in English and shown with English subtitles.
Sponsored by: French Studies, Human Rights, CMIA, GSS, Literature, and the Division of Languages & Literature
Contact: Gabriella Lindsay
E-mail: [email protected]
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April 7, 2026
7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center
Albertine French Film Festival: L’armée des ombres
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969, 2h25 min.
April 7, 2026
7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Center
The most personal film by the acclaimed director Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Samouraï), who had participated in the French Resistance himself, this tragic masterpiece, based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, recounts the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought in the Resistance. Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret star as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime. Long underappreciated in France and unseen in the United States, the atmospheric and gripping thriller Army of Shadows is now widely recognized as the summit of Melville’s career, channeling the exquisite minimalism of his gangster films to create an unsparing tale of defiance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
“...any moviegoers with a weakness for dry heroism, dark-toned humor, and storytelling of pantherish pace and grace—in short, lovers of cinema—should reach for their fedoras, turn up the collars of their coats, and sneak to this picture through a mist of rain.” – The New Yorker
Click here to view the film's trailer.
This festival is supported by a grant from Albertine Cinémathèque, part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine–The French Institute for Culture and Education, and Albertine Foundation. It is made possible with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC). All films will be introduced in English and shown with English subtitles.
Sponsored by: French Studies, Human Rights, CMIA, GSS, Literature, and the Division of Languages & Literature
Contact: Gabriella Lindsay
E-mail: [email protected]
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May 4, 2026
5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
Albertine French Film Festival: Orlando
Director: Paul B. Preciado, 2023, 1h38 min.
May 4, 2026
5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema
Academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Preciado's Berlin Film Festival award-winning doc tells his and others' stories of transition through unique reenactments and visual interpretations of Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography.
“The first trans masterpiece.” – B. Ruby Rich, Film Quarterly.
“Essential… funny, intellectually provocative, and, finally, deeply moving.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
Click here to view the film's trailer.
This festival is supported by a grant from Albertine Cinémathèque, part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine–The French Institute for Culture and Education, and Albertine Foundation. It is made possible with the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC). All films will be introduced in English and shown with English subtitles.
Sponsored by: French Studies, Human Rights, CMIA, GSS, Literature, and the Division of Languages & Literature
Contact: Gabriella Lindsay
E-mail: [email protected]
Albertine Cinémathèque is part of the French for All initiative by Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation and is made possible by the support of the Centre National Du Cinéma et De L'Image Animée (CNC)