BASTARDS / WHITE MATERIAL

ABOUT THE FILMS:

BASTARDS, 2013, Dir. Claire Denis, 100 Mins, IFC Films, France/Germany

In English and French with English subtitles.

Acclaimed director Claire Denis’s jagged, daringly fragmented and darkest film is a genuinely contemporary film noir inspired by recent French sex ring scandals involving men of wealth and power. Vincent Lindon stars as Marco, a sea captain gone AWOL to avenge his brother-in-law’s suicide and to rescue his estranged sister and his teenaged niece (Lola Créton); Chiara Mastroianni is Lindon’s married lover, who has sold her soul in exchange for the security of her young son; and the remarkable Michel Subor is her husband – a sleazy financier who is the very embodiment of an evil beyond comprehension. Denis takes the viewer into the very heart of darkness in her most unsettling film yet, an unforgettable and thrilling commentary on late capitalism.

FORMAT: DCP

WHITE MATERIAL, 2009, Dir. Claire Denis, 106 Mins, IFC Films, France

In French with English subtitles.

Twenty-two years after her debut CHOCOLAT, Claire Denis returned to Africa to craft a visceral and very personal rumination on a society hurtling into chaos. In the midst of a volatile regime change, Maria Vial (the riveting Isabelle Huppert) is fighting to sustain her family’s coffee plantation. With rebels and the army struggling for control, French peacekeeping forces move out, warning the remaining white residents that they’re on their own. But Maria refuses to be driven off the land, even as tragedy looms. With Isaach de Bankolé.

FORMAT: 35mm