Zeroing in on a dark, hedonistic, wildly creative decade in the life of its subject, Bonello’s latest feature is a kaleidoscopic torrent of lavish excess—and a delirious twist on the modern biopic’s rules and limitations. An NYFF52 selection.

The shorts included here, most of them very seldom screened in the U.S., range from autobiographical reverie (Où en êtes-vous, Bertrand Bonello?) to emotionally charged chamber drama (Cindy: The Doll Is Mine and Where the Boys Are).

Q&A with Bertrand Bonello on April 30

This gorgeous, opium-soaked fever dream of life in a Parisian brothel at the turn of the century, filmed with a mixture of casual detachment and needlepoint precision, might be Bonello’s greatest work to date.

Bonello’s engrossing portrait of Ingrid Caven is a showcase for the work of a truly sui generis musician—a sort of cabaret singer for the 21st century—and a respectful tribute to one artist from another.

Q&A with Bertrand Bonello on May 1

In Bonello’s nutty, exhilarating symphony about an artistic community in revolt, Mathieu Amalric plays a harried filmmaker who, after an on-set brush with death, retreats to a rural hedonist commune.

Introduction by Bertrand Bonello at the 9:30pm screening on April 30

Bonello emerged as a major filmmaker with this ambitious, tragic meditation on what would become two of his recurring obsessions: the use of sex as economic capital, and the post-’68 state of political radicalism in France.

Bertrand Bonello stars as “Bertrand,” a filmmaker obsessed with monstrosity as the central theme of his new work in this disquieting yet fascinating (and funny!) mixture of body horror and character study.

Introduction by Bertrand Bonello at 9:30pm screening

Bonello’s rarely screened first feature, about a young married couple living in frigid Montreal, starts with the basic materials of the domestic drama and rearranges them in invigorating, startling new configurations.

This lyrical and disturbing modern update of the myth of Tiresias, in which a Brazilian transsexual develops the gift of prophecy after surviving an act of violence, is perhaps Bonello’s richest and most elusive film to date.