La Musica

Already an accomplished writer, Marguerite Duras made her filmmaking debut in 1966 with La Musica (86m), co-directed with Paul Seban. Elaborating on a one-act play Duras had written the previous year, the film takes shape as a delicate and devastating dance among three characters whose paths cross in a small northern French town: a man and a woman (Robert Hossein and Delphine Seyrig) who are there to formalize their divorce, and a mysterious young American woman (Julie Dassin) who meets the man in a café. The ornate staging and the stark black-and-white photography by Sacha Vierny (known for his work on Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad) imbues the film with a ghostliness that heightens its exploration of love and the passage of time. 

Restored in 2024 by the Cinémathèque française with Arte Vidéo, with the authorization of Rene Chateau editions.

Preceded by:
J’ai faim, j’ai froid
Chantal Akerman, 1984, France, 14m
French with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of 4K Restoration
In this spirited short by Chantal Akerman, two teenage girls run away from Belgium to Paris, haunting its cafes, chain-smoking, and repeatedly declaring their needs: “I’m hungry, I’m cold.” In Akerman’s own words: “A little musical comedy without singing.”

Chantal Akerman’s short film J’ai faim, j’ai froid is part of the collective work Paris vu par…20 ans après. It was restored by the Royal Film Archive of Belgium – CINEMATEK and the Cinémathèque française, in collaboration with the Chantal Akerman Foundation. The restoration work was carried out using 35mm negatives held in the collections of the Cinémathèque française, deposited by Philippe Garrel. The film was digitized in 4K at the CNC laboratory and the image restoration was carried out at the laboratory of the Royal Film Archive of Belgium under the supervision of Director of Photography Luc Ben Hamou. The sound was restored by Léon Rousseau (Paris).

Special thanks to Villa Albertine for their generous support of French cinema.