Albertine Film Festival
November 3rd-19th, 2025
The Lois ’51 and J. Harvey Watson Department of French & Francophone Studies Department at Middlebury College is excited to host our Albertine Cinémathèque French Film Festival this Fall 2025: Le cinéma francophone et la place de l’humain au sein du vivant (Francophone Cinema and the Place of the Human). Spread over two weeks, six wonderful films will explore Francophone cinema’s contribution to the fundamental question of what makes us human and how humans interact with their human and non-human living environments.
Tickets : All films are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! Certain films will be ticketed due to capacity. See details below.
Dates & Locations
All films will start at 7:30 pm with the exception of Saturday, November 15th. That is a matinee at 3:00 pm.
Le Règne Animal (The Animal Kingdom)
Monday, November 3rd, 2025, McCardell Bicentennial Hall 216 - 7:30pm : Le Règne Animal (The Animal Kingdom), dir. Thomas Cailley, 2023
Click here for trailer (in French with English subtitles).
Awarded for 5 Cesar : Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score, and Best Cinematography.
In a world hit by a wave of mutations that are gradually transforming some humans into animals, François does everything he can to save his wife, who is affected by this mysterious condition. As some of the creatures disappear into a nearby forest, he embarks with Émile, their 16-year-old son, on a quest that will change their lives forever.
Le salaire de la peur (Wages of Fear)
Thursday, November 6th, McCardell Bicentennial Hall 216, 7:30pm: Le salaire de la peur (Wages of Fear), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953
Click here for trailer in English.
In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men sign on for a suicide mission to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route. As they ferry their explosive cargo to a faraway oil fire, each bump and jolt tests their courage, their friendship, and their nerves. The result is one of the greatest thrillers ever committed to celluloid, a white-knuckle ride from France’s legendary master of suspense, Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Ni Chaînes, Ni Maitres (No Chains, No Masters)
Tuesday, November 11th, Alexander Twilight Hall Auditorium, 7:30pm: Ni Chaînes, Ni Maitres (No Chains, No Masters), dir. Simon Moutairou, 2024
Click here for trailer in French with English subtitles.
In 1759, the Island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean is under French colonial rule. The enslaved population working in the sugar cane plantation live in constant fear. Among them, 16-year-old Mati refuses to accept her fate. Unlike her father Massamba, who has grown disillusioned by years of oppression, Mati dreams of freedom and a life beyond the plantation. One night, desperate to flee the violence of her captors, Mati finds refuge in a remote part of the island rumored to be home to a community of runaway slaves. Her escape triggers a ruthless pursuit. The plantation owner hires the merciless slave owner Madame La Victoire and her sons to track her down. Massamba realizes the brutal consequences awaiting her daughter if she gets captured. He has no choice but to break free from his chains and embark on a perilous journey through the island’s dense jungle to find her. The father and daughter’s journey becomes a desperate fight for survival and a final, irreversible break from the colonial system that has defined their lives.
Banel & Adama
Saturday, November 15th, Alexander Twilight Hall Auditorium, 3:00pm - Banel & Adama, dir. Ramata-Toulaye Sy, 2023
Click here to watch the film trailer (Pulaar with English subtitles).
Set against the terrestrial majesty of the Sahel, Banel & Adama is a tragic romance following two young lovers as they strive for independence and self-possession in the face of imperious tradition. Neither Senegal nor the rest of the world has known a love like Banel (Khady Mane) and Adama’s (Mamadou Diallo), each eager to begin their adult lives away from the stifling demands of their families and community. The young couple were married by an ostensible combination of chance and duty when Adama’s older brother Yero died, leaving a still-young Banel, his second wife, a too-young widow. Now, the same duty dictates that Adama accept the role of village chief. However, the fated lovers have plans that do not include the expectations of others. That is, until something in the air changes. The rains do not come, the cattle begin to die, the men leave and Banel, once lovelorn and lost in responsibility, surrenders to the call for a life lived beyond prescription. Premiering in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — the sole debut granted the honor — Banel & Adama is a lyrical odyssey that takes a hypnotic descent into mythic fabulism with the profundity of a timeless fable. Sy delivers a lesson in craft, building lush, inspired, and strong – willed characters who command perspective, seeking to carve out a future for themselves in a narrative atmosphere hauntingly alive from sand to sky.
Orlando : ma biographie politique (Orlando, My Political Biography)
Monday, November 17th, Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center), 7:30pm: Orlando : ma biographie politique (Orlando, My Political Biography), dir. Paul. B. Preciado, 2023
Click here to watch the English trailer.
“Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.” Taking Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando: A Biography as its starting point, academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Preciado has fashioned the documentary, Orlando: My Political Biography, as a personal essay, historical analysis, and social manifesto which premiered and took home four prizes at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival. For almost a century, Woolf’s eponymous hero/heroine has inspired readers for their gender fluidity across physical and spiritual metamorphoses over a 300-year lifetime. Preciado casts a diverse cross-section of more than twenty trans and non-binary individuals in the role of Orlando as they perform interpretations of scenes from the novel, weaving into Woolf’s narrative their own stories of identity and transition. Not content to simply update a seminal work, Preciado interrogates the relevance of Orlando in the continuing struggle against anti-trans ideologies and in the fight for global trans rights.
Dahomey
Wednesday, November 19th, Dana Auditorium (Sunderland Language Center) - Dahomey, dir. Mati Diop, 2024
*This film will be ticketed to ensure capacity. Details to come soon.*
Click here to watch the trailer.
Winner of the coveted Golden Bear prize at the 2024 Berlinale, DAHOMEY is an immersive and astounding work of art from Mati Diop – director of the award-winning Atlantics. Delving into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution, this acclaimed documentary is a poetic look at a seldom-discussed history.
Taking place in November 2021, the film takes as its subject 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey, which, along with thousands of others, were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. As these artifacts are due to leave Paris to return to their country of origin: the present-day Republic of Benin, Diop questions how they should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence, using ethereal voiceover and footage of debating students at the University of Abomey-Calavi to offer multiple perspectives.
By turns invigorating and thought-provoking, Diop’s latest uses compelling non-traditional storytelling techniques to powerfully bring the past into the present, offering an affecting though altogether singular conversation piece that is as spellbinding as it is essential.
Questions? Please email Prof. Therese Banks (thereseb@middlebury.edu) and Jolene Newton (jynewton@middlebury.edu).
With Gratitude...
Albertine Cinémathèque is part of the French For All initiative by Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation and is made possible by the support of the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC)
In addition, we thank the following departments for their contributions when selecting the films to be presented. Black Studies, History of Art and Architecture, Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies and Film and Media Culture.