1959 / France & Japan / 90 mins / Dir: Alain Resnais
Cast: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada

A cornerstone film of the French New Wave, Alain Resnais’ first feature is one of the most influential films of all time.

A French actress and a Japanese architect engage in a brief, intense affair in post-war Hiroshima, their consuming fascination impelling them to exorcise their own scarred memories of love and suffering. Utilizing an innovative flasback structure and an Academy Award-nominated screenplay by novelist Marguerite Duras, Resnais delicately weaves past and present, personal pain and public anguish, in this moody masterwork.

Nominations: Academy Award for Best Screenplay, the Palm d’Or at Cannes, BAFTA for Best Film and Best Foreign Actress

  ‘A complex yet compelling tour de force’  New York Times

ALSO SCREENING…

La Jetée

1962 / France / 28mins / Dir: Chris Marker
Cast: Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux

Chris Marker, the undisputed master of the filmic essay, composed this film almost entirely of still photographs. It traces a desperate experiment by the few remaining survivors of World War III to recover and change the past, and gain access to the future, through the action of memory. A man is chosen for his unique quality of having retained a single clear image from prewar days: no more than an ambiguous memory fragment from childhood — a visit to the jetty at Orly airport, the troubling glance of an unknown woman, the crumpling body of a dying man. La Jetée was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys and is narrated by Jean Négroni.

Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo Award for Best Short Film

‘A singular experience’ New York Times