The wild, stark and sometimes surreal landscape of Iceland is the beating heart of an important new film by writer/director Hlynur Pálmason. Elliott Crosset Hove gives a riveting performance as Lucas, a priest from Denmark who arrives to set up a new (Lutheran) church. It is a challenging journey made worse when the translator dies and Lucas must depend on Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson), his obviously hostile guide. At first Lucas is charmed by his Danish-speaking host and the attentions of his appealing older daughter (Vic Carmen Sonne). But by the time the “heathen” villagers erect the new church two things are certain: Lucas is losing his faith in God, while Ragnar – and Iceland – will never stop resisting their colonial rulers. “This arrestingly beautiful journey into the unknown is already one of the year’s best films” Carlos Aguilar, IndieWire.

Fans of the masterful accompaniment of pianist Patrick Miller of the Hartt School – mark your calendars! Miller’s music is an essential part of experiencing this classic silent film, based on the historical figure of Casanova. Created largely by Russians emigrees, it is not only the story of a man obsessed by his sexual conquests, but a study of what makes someone into a prisoner of their own desires. Please join us for the Festival’s Opening Reception following the film, sponsored by the Alliance Française of Hartford. There will be one 15 minute intermission.

The highly anticipated debut film of Aurélien Froment, best known as Le Monde cartoonist Aurel, is an animated tribute to the legendary cartoonist Josep Bartoli. Fleeing Spain during the fight against Franco and fascism, Bartoli is placed in a French internment camp, where he expresses his private memories of the past not through speaking, but through his powerful drawings. His larger-than-life adventures see Bartoli escaping to Mexico, where he becomes the confidant and lover of painter Frieda Kahlo. Although meeting with painters including Jackson Pollack and Theodore Rothko, Bartoli (and the film) never forgets the pain of war, and the struggle for freedom. “Josep's animation is not born from movement but from its mystery.” - José Amador Pérez Andújarˆ, El Antepenúltimo Mohican, Spain. Discussion leader, Karen Humphreys, Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College

This influential New Wave gangster classic is a cool-headed tribute to American film noir. When Casey (Delon) escapes from prison in Marseille, he learns how to pull off a high-stakes jewelry theft in Paris. At first alone in his quest, Fate brings together two other partners: Volonte as a fellow prisoner, and Montand as a nightclub owner. While the diamonds may be within reach, they must still battle the police and the vengeance of the mob. Though their conversations are few and options limited, the three friends find satisfaction in following their code of honor to the end. “I will never forget the emotional depths of Alain [Delon]’s blue eyes. One could see not only his exterior but his interior, his emotions and his past . . .” director John Woo.

When a 15-year-old girl is pregnant but is not ready to become a mother, is it a matter for herself, her mother, her religion or the state to decide when and if she can terminate her pregnancy? This not-unfamiliar question plays out in outskirts of N’Djamena in Chad, with Maria and her compassionate mother Amina believing it should be a private matter. Although Amina has been shunned for her own earlier transgressions, she looks to the women in her village to find support. “Shines a light on Chad’s strict patriarchal laws, but also the powerful connections women form to help each other survive” – Marya E. Gates, RogerEbert.com. Join us for a discussion after the film with Doyle Calhoun, Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College.

“It suits them to think I’m a slut,” says gifted literature student Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei, in a star-making performance) of the puritanical bourgeoise girls in her Angoulême college dorm. In 1963, Anne finds little help from other students or doctors on helping her end a pregnancy that would crush her dream of surpassing her working class background. Disturbing, (mostly) beautiful to look at, and above all real, this film is based on the memoir of Annie Ernaud a Nobel Prize winner in Literature. “Diwan shows you a woman who, in choosing to live her life, risks becoming a criminal and dares to be free.” – Manohla Dargis, New York Times. Discussion following the film with Blase Provitola, Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College.

First, we’d like to say “merci mille fois” to Professor Emeritus Sonia Lee. The Founding Director of April in Paris, her strong support for African francophone film inspires us to expand our definition of French cinema. Tunisian writer/director Leyla Bouzid’s film explores the contrasting experiences of two Arab students at the Sorbonne. Farah (Zbeida Belhajamor) is a free-spirited Tunisian, determined to take every bit of pleasure from her Parisian adventure before returning home. However Ahmed (Sami Outabali), born in France of Algerian background, finds it equally hard to deny his desire for Farah than to ignore his family’s strict version of Islam. “It's an edifying and introspective film about embracing our most carnal impulses without shame.” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter. Stay for a discussion after the film led by Karen Humphreys, Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College.

Hartford premiere of a delightfully provocative satire. Writer/director Bruno Dumont’s new film finds both comedy and drama in the tension between our private and public lives. France stars Léa Seydoux, whose films include No Time to Die, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Blue is the Warmest Color, which won her the Best Actress Palme d’Or at Cannes. She perfectly inhabits her role as a celebrity tv journalist, who “lives for her fans.” But after causing an accident she goes silent, trying to find the suppressed reality of her true self. “Amid the film’s riotous satire…Dumont plants a melancholy identity crisis: the television star and the nation are equally isolated in the distorting mirrors of their own fabricated images.” – Richard Brody, the New Yorker. Discussion following the film with Sara Kippur, Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College

Verdi’s glorious Shakespearean comedy features a brilliant ensemble cast in Robert Carsen’s celebrated staging. Baritone Michael Volle sings his first Verdi role at the Met as the caddish knight Falstaff, gleefully tormented by a trio of clever women who deliver his comeuppance. Reuniting after their acclaimed turns in the production’s 2019 run are soprano Ailyn Pérez as Alice Ford, soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Meg Page, and mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly. Soprano Hera Hyesang Park and tenor Bogdan Volkov are the young couple Nannetta and Fenton, and Maestro Daniele Rustioni conducts.

Celebrate April in Paris and join our final night reception at 7 pm, followed by the 8 pm screening of a brilliant and haunting Canadian film shot in Quebec’s awe-inspiring Montmorency Forest. Based on the novel by Jocelyne Saucier, it opens in the aftermath of a destructive wildfire, which sent three elderly men off the grid as near-hermits. But change is inevitable, as Ted (one of the three) dies, and the private life of the survivors is transformed by the arrival of two women. The first (played by acclaimed actor Andrée Lachapelle in her final role) is a fugitive who has spent her life confined in a psychiatric hospital. The other is a young photographer looking for Ted’s hidden paintings of the wildfire. But the recluses’ deep connection with nature isn’t threatened by death, love, or aging, but by the ongoing human damage to the Earth. “Without politics or judgment, the film asks us to cherish life in all its simple pleasures and wonders.” – Pat Mullen, Toronto International Film Festival review.

Utica: The Last Refuge opens with the Azeins, a refugee family of four from Sudan, arriving at Syracuse International Airport. After spending six years in a camp in Ethiopia, they have finally made it to the US, where they are welcomed by Abdelshakour, a fellow refugee from Sudan. An employee of Utica’s venerable refugee resettlement agency, he sees that they have few belongings so he gives them the winter coats he has brought with him. Nada is pregnant. They will soon be a family of five and need extra attention because they have no relatives in the area. That the Azeins have arrived in the midst of unprecedented upheaval in US policies towards refugees adds a layer of additional tension to their story. The adjustments refugees, especially those from remote rural areas, have to make to survive here are considerable. The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees (MVRCR) is regarded nationally as a model agency for how refugee resettlement is done, for how they guide Utica’s refugees into comfortable jobs and lives, but they are suddenly facing new stresses. Reduced incoming numbers means a reduced budget. If their ability to assist the Azeins is compromised, their journey here becomes that much more difficult. John Zogby Pollster, author, trend-spotter, thought leader & native Utican “Everything in this film—the slices of everyday life, the intimacy—details a people and a community who found each other and together gained salvation. I am proud to say it is my community and I have never before seen it captured so perfectly.”

A witch hunt is beginning in Arthur Miller’s captivating parable of power with Erin Doherty (The Crown) and Brendan Cowell (Yerma). Raised to be seen but not heard, a group of young women in Salem suddenly find their words have an almighty power. As a climate of fear, vendetta and accusation spreads through the community, no one is safe from trial. Lyndsey Turner (Hamlet) directs this contemporary new staging, designed by Tony Award-winner Es Devlin (The Lehman Trilogy). Captured live from the Olivier stage at the National Theatre.

Don’t miss a one-time only screening of a searing real-life drama made by and for women - and fans of a free press. Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go) and Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick) are New York Times journalists who investigate multiple allegations of sexual abuse by movie producer Harvey Weinstein. The reporters get a tip that actor Rose McGowan and other women have been assaulted by the powerful and respected Weinstein, and they begin the Herculean effort of getting the actors (who fear career death), and Weinstein’s assistants (who fear for their jobs) to reveal their names. A great journalistic thriller that deserves to be up there with Spotlight and All the President’s Men. “She Said feels not just important, but urgent.” – Kimberly Jones, Austin Chronicle.

Novelist and screenwriter Ishiguro Katsu (Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go) is among the many devotees of the masterful films by Akira Kurosawa, from Ran to Rashomon. In a heartfelt tribute, Kasuo has written an (Academy Award nominated) screenplay based on Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru. The brilliant adaptation stars Bill Nighy, the British veteran of over 80 (!) films including Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean and Notes on a Scandal. Called “Mr. Zombie” by his co-workers, Nighy plays a faceless 1950s bureaucrat toiling in his office, until he is shocked out of his torpor by a sudden, terminal illness. Searching to discover his true self and meaning in what is left of his life, he plunges into its dangerous, magnificent chaos for the first time. “a rare remake that only augments and enriches the original. For Bill Nighy, it feels in every sense like the role of a lifetime.” – John Nugent, Empire Magazine.

Out Film CT Queer Thursdays and Cinestudio present a swoon-worthy love story set in a suburb north of Melbourne on the eve of the year 2000. Things are in crisis mode for Kol (Elias Anton): it’s the day of the local dance competition, and his partner (Hattie Hook) wakes up on the beach after a bender, not knowing where she is. Her brother Adam, on his last day at home before heading to Argentina for graduate study, tracks her down and drives the nervous duo to the contest in time. Over the 24 hours that they spend together, Kol is drawn to the casually out-and-proud Adam, who is equally captivated by the shy, still-innocent Kol. It’s a brief encounter for sure, but one with the potential of transforming their lives. “A profoundly moving film about the beauty and the horror of what it means to be seen for the first time, to love for the first time.” Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times.

In moving the setting of Kathleen Tessaro’s acclaimed novel from Boston during the Great Depression to present day New York City, Rare Objects is a powerful reminder that immigrants have always been seen as the inferior “other.” Director Katie Holmes’ third film stars Julia Mayorga (American Rust) as Benita, the daughter of immigrants who ends up in a psychiatric facility for being “out of control.” She forms a bond with Diana, a wealthy, mysterious patient (Katie Holmes), who encourages Benita to look ahead and build a new life. Making the plunge, Benita takes a job at an antiques store run by an elusive eccentric played by Alan Cumming. It is nothing less than the trauma of her past that she must overcome, with the hope that her new friends are not enemies, but a lifeline to self-acceptance. To quote the irreplaceable Alan Cumming, “Go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly, you will be okay.”

A sterling cast assembles for Strauss’s grand Viennese comedy. Soprano Lise Davidsen is the aging Marschallin, opposite mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as her lover Octavian and soprano Erin Morley as Sophie, the beautiful younger woman who steals his heart. Bass Günther Groissböck returns as the churlish Baron Ochs, and Markus Brück is Sophie’s wealthy father, Faninal. Maestro Simone Young takes the Met podium to oversee Robert Carsen’s fin-de-siècle staging.

When Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones opened the Met’s 2021–22 season to universal acclaim, it marked a historic moment in the annals of the company. Now, the six-time Grammy Award–winning composer’s first opera arrives at the Met. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is the bar owner Kathy Hagen. Yannick Nézet-Séguin is again on the podium for Blanchard’s second Met premiere, and director James Robinson—whose productions of Fire and Porgy and Bess brought down the house—oversees the staging. Camille A. Brown, whose choreography electrified audiences in Fire and Porgy, also returns.