Discover the richness of French cinema — a monthly event dedicated to classic films and expert-led discussions. Each session features a renowned French film, offering a unique opportunity to explore its artistic, cultural, and historical significance.
A carefully selected classic French film is screened each month.
A cinema expert or guest speaker provides insights into the film's context, themes, and artistic impact.
Attendees can join the discussion, share their thoughts, and deepen their appreciation of French cinema.
Deborah specialises in cinema and translation. Her research spans French, New Zealand, and Māori cinema, with a growing focus on Indigenous film. She has subtitled Māori and NZ films, translated a Māori novel into French, and co-directed a documentary on Kanak writer Déwé Gorodey. Since 2018, she has co-directed the Wairoa Māori Film Festival, curating and translating Māori short films for international festivals.
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Pierre has a passion for exploring how film reflects and questions our humanity. Through the lens of powerful storytelling, he guides audiences in uncovering the ethical dilemmas, emotional landscapes, and social contexts that define iconic French films. His insightful approach invites us to examine our own moral compass, confront uncomfortable truths, and appreciate the enduring force of memory, empathy, and resilience.
For our fifth cycle, we turn to Claude Chabrol — one of French cinema's most distinctive and uncompromising voices. Often associated with the birth of the Nouvelle Vague, Chabrol quickly carved out a world entirely his own: a cold, precise, and darkly ironic gaze upon the bourgeoisie, their secrets, their hypocrisies, and their crimes.
Through three landmark films — Que la bête meure, La cérémonie, and Madame Bovary — this cycle invites you to explore Chabrol's mastery of psychological tension, his Hitchcockian sense of dread, and his unflinching portrait of social class. Whether adapting Flaubert or crafting his own unsettling thrillers, Chabrol never lets his characters — or his audience — off the hook.
A filmmaker of razor-sharp intelligence, moral ambiguity, and quiet devastation.
Featured Director
One of the founding figures of the French Nouvelle Vague, Claude Chabrol began his career as a critic at Cahiers du Cinéma before making his debut feature Le Beau Serge in 1958 — widely considered the first true Nouvelle Vague film. But where his contemporaries Godard and Truffaut embraced experimentation and autobiography, Chabrol developed a cooler, more clinical style.
Deeply influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, he became the undisputed master of the French thriller — exploring guilt, desire, betrayal, and violence beneath the polished surface of provincial bourgeois life. With over 50 films spanning five decades, Chabrol's work is characterised by its elegant economy, dark wit, and an almost surgical dissection of human weakness. His camera judges without flinching — and without pity.
SESSION OVERDirected by Claude Chabrol · 1969 · Starring Michel Duchaussoy & Jean Yanne
When his young son is killed by a hit-and-run driver who never stops, Charles Thénier embarks on a methodical search for the man responsible. He finds him — a brutish, contemptible figure — and infiltrates his family circle. But as the plan for revenge takes shape, Chabrol blurs the line between hunter and hunted, victim and perpetrator, in a thriller of devastating moral complexity.
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Coming soon
Directed by Claude Chabrol · 1991 · Starring Isabelle Huppert & Jean-François Balmer
Emma Bovary, a doctor's wife in provincial Normandy, suffocates under the weight of a dull marriage and unfulfilled romantic dreams. Seeking escape through affairs and extravagance, she spirals toward ruin. Chabrol's faithful, luminously beautiful adaptation of Flaubert's masterpiece strips away sentimentality to reveal Emma with cool compassion — neither damned nor romanticised, simply human.
Coming soon
Directed by Claude Chabrol · 1995 · Starring Sandrine Bonnaire & Isabelle Huppert
Sophie, a new maid hired by a cultured bourgeois family in Brittany, strikes up an unlikely friendship with Jeanne, the village postmistress — volatile, subversive, and deeply resentful of the class divide. Based on Ruth Rendell's novel A Judgement in Stone, this cold, almost detached thriller builds inexorably toward a shocking act of violence. Huppert and Bonnaire are unforgettable.
A seismic shift in cinema history — handheld cameras, real locations, playful editing, and a generation of directors who remade the language of film.
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Master of intimate, human-centred storytelling — revealing the beauty and complexity of ordinary lives with elegance, warmth, and remarkable sensitivity.
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Known for his versatility and bold storytelling, Malle's films capture the complexities of human nature and society with a striking visual style.
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🗓️ Tuesday 4 august
🕔 6PM
📍 Alliance Française Auckland
💸 AF Members: $5
Non-members: $10
Info & booking : Click on the image
Discover La cérémonie by Claude Chabrol, a French cinema classic, with expert insights. With English subtitles
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🗓️ Tuesday 7 July
🕔 6PM
📍 Alliance Française Auckland
💸 AF Members: $5
Non-members: $10
Info & booking : Click on the image
Discover Madame Bovary by Claude Chabrol, a French cinema classic, with expert insights. With English subtitles
Read More…
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