Jean Rollin's The Shiver of Vampires (1970)

For the first time in its 17-year history, Rendez-Vous with French Cinema will include a special sidebar section, Rendez-Vous+, seeking to expand the annual festival’s offerings to documentaries and little-seen early features from now-acclaimed directors.

This diverse 12-program sidebar will include the epic three-part documentary Muslims of France, tracing Muslim lives in France from the early 19th century to contemporary political controversies through archival footage and historian interviews. France’s colonial legacy also informs Here We Drown Algerians, the harrowing story of a brutal French crackdown on an Algerian march in 1961 that went largely unreported until the early 1990s.

Elsewhere in the series is an opportunity to see an early work by A Prophet director Jacques Audiard, See How They Fall (1994), a darkly funny noir powered by intersecting stories. Garde à vue (1981), an early film from Claude Miller (A Secret), concerns a duel between a rough-edged policeman and a prominent local lawyer he arrests for rape on New Year’s Eve. Save your venturesome side for prolific cult director Jean Rollin’s The Shiver of Vampires, about newlyweds who stop at a castle for the night only to realize it’s HQ for a group of lesbian vampires.

Rendez-Vous+ will run concurrently with Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, highlighted this year by Opening Night film The Intouchables, now one of France’s top-grossing movies ever, and a new resorted version of the masterwork Children of Paradise (1945). It’s also stacked with in-person appearances by filmmakers and actors, including Mathieu Amalric, Laurent Achard, François Cluzet, Benoit Jacquot, Tahar Rahim and Audrey Tautou.

Tickets to both series are now on sale to Film Society members & patrons and will go on sale to the general public on February 16. Tickets to Rendez-Vous+ films are only $10, for everyone!