Though little-known to American moviegoers, Patricia Mazuy has earned a reputation and a dedicated following among French audiences and international festival patrons for her bracing, singular directorial vision, developed over three decades across a small but distinguished filmography of narrative features, documentaries, and TV movies, after getting her start as an editor on the films of Agnès Varda. Many of her keen-eyed period dramas, wry examinations of modern workplace dynamics, and lean, brooding chamber pieces of familial angst have screened at Cannes, and her work has earned the admiration of Jacques Rivette. In addition to multiple collaborations with composer John Cale, who scored three of her features, Mazuy has drawn quietly virtuosic performances from the likes of Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, and Laurent Lafitte, each contributing to a vividly textured portrait of French social life. On the occasion of her fifth feature, Paul Sanchez Is Back! (screened in this year’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema), Film at Lincoln Center welcomes Mazuy in person for this first American showcase of her work.

Highlights of Rebel Spirit: The Films of Patricia Mazuy include the period drama The King’s Daughters, a starkly realized vision of 17th-century France starring Isabelle Huppert that marks Mazuy’s first collaboration with Cale; the 1970s-set television film Travolta and Me, following a teenage couple as they develop an awkward yet intense romance, preceded by a surprise short; Mazuy’s latest feature Paul Sanchez Is Back!, a gripping, imaginative caper starring Laurent Lafitte; Of Women and Horses, a riveting drama set in the world of competitive dressage starring Bruno Ganz and Marina Hands; and her debut feature, the intimate, vaguely sinister family fable Peaux  de vaches, shot by legendary cinematographer Raoul Coutard.

Organized by Florence Almozini and Madeline Whittle. Presented in collaboration with Unifrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.