Wednesday 5 February

OPENING NIGHT 2025

7:00pm FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER

Robert Bresson (1971) 83 mins – Unclassified 15+

In his rarely screened second colour film – evocatively shot by Pierre Lhomme (Melville’s L’armée des ombres) – Bresson reinterprets Dostoevsky’s short story “White Nights” by “focusing solely on the momentum provided by the reading” (Bresson), replacing the source’s neurotic interior monologue with pure gesture and a playful use of sound. As a result, the master director’s retelling of the strange ritual between arts graduate Jacques (Guillaume des Forêts) and the disillusioned Marthe (Isabelle Weingarten) over four nights by the Pont Neuf emerges as one of his most musical, surprisingly tender and slyly humorous films.

4K DCP.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
Rolling Down That Hill: Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer
by David Heslin


8:45pm A COUCH IN NEW YORK

Chantal Akerman (1996) 108 mins – M

Akerman’s blithe deconstruction of the romantic comedy is one of her most deceptive and least widely seen films. Negotiating the fine line between her often incisive and razor-sharp approach to filmmaking and her love of genre, as well as her shifting allegiances between Europe and New York, this playful “fish out of water” comedy stars Juliette Binoche and William Hurt in a tale revolving around the exchange of apartments between an American psychoanalyst and a Parisienne dancer. Featuring a wonderful score by Akerman’s long-term partner, Sonia Wieder-Atherton.

35mm print courtesy of La Cinémathèque Suisse.

CTEQ ANNOTATION
A Couch in New York
by Eloise Ross

Wednesday 5 February
OPENING NIGHT 2025

12–26 February
BALLETIC SWORDFIGHTS, FLYING HEROINES AND BAMBOO FORESTS: KING HU, MASTER OF WUXIA

5–19 March
THE PAST IS ALWAYS PRESENT: THE EVOLUTIONARY CAREER OF ROBERTO ROSSELLINI

26 March – 9 April
OUT OF THE PAST AND INTO FLARES: NEO-NOIR IN 1970s AMERICA

16–30 April
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE: THE UNFLINCHING VISION OF MICHAEL HANEKE

7–21 May
BARABARA STEELE: THE QUEEN OF SCREAM

28 May – 11 June
VÍCTOR ERICE: COME TOWARDS THE LIGHT

18 June – 2 July
REBELLIOUS MUSE: DELPHINE SEYRIG AS ACTOR, DIRECTOR AND ACTIVIST

Wednesday 9 July
DEEP DIVE: THE RESTLESSLY INVENTIVE WORK OF DIRK DE BRUYN

16–30 July
APPETITE FOR DECONSTRUCTION: SEIJUN SUZUKI

3–17 September
CINE DE ORO: TREASURES OF MEXICAN CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE

24 September – 8 October
ONE FOR THE AGES: THE BALLADIC, PAINTERLY CINEMA OF FRANTIŠEK VLÁČIL

15–22 October
“ON THE EDGE OF FICTION”: ELIA SULEIMAN’S CINEMA OF BELONGING

29 October – 5 November
MARX, MELODRAMA AND MARCOS: LINO BROCKA FROM THE MID-1970s TO THE EARLY 1980s

12–19 November
IT’S TIME: AUSTRALIAN CINEMA IN 1975

Wednesday 26 November
MOTHER TONGUE: AUSTRALIAN WOMEN IN ANIMATION

3–17 December
THE COURAGE TO TAKE THINGS SERIOUSLY: JOHN M. STAHL’S UNIRONIC MELODRAMAS