Rendez-Vous with French Cinema is the leading showcase for contemporary French film in the United States. It is co-produced by UniFrance and Film at Lincoln Center.
Cinema was invented in France, and French humor is wonderfully bizarre. Films are mostly in French with English subtitles, so this is a great chance to brush up on your Ohlala.
31st Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2026
The 31st Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2026 screens the latest French films with UniFrance at Film at Lincoln Center in Manhattan’s Upper West Side; from March 5-15, 2026. From $19. 🇫🇷
The Opening Night film is the New York Premiere of “The Stranger” (2025) by François Ozon, an adaptation of French Algerian author Albert Camus’ classic existential novel about our search for meaning within a very indifferent universe.
It’s nominated for four César Awards (the French Oscars) including Best Actor and Supporting Actor. The film is notable for Benjamin Voisin’s and Pierre Lottin’s performances, the use of Black and White to drive existential tension, a queer reading of the story, and the foregrounding of its Algerian location. In the past, Algeria wouldn’t matter, but now it does.
The story turns on the socially isolated protagonist Meursault’s murder of an Arab man on the beach ~ for no reason at all, and his subsequent trial. He was convicted, not for the crime, but for his complete lack of humanity. That’s very French.
When I read the book in the 1970s, Meursault seemed like a rare character. But modern life and social media (ironically) have left many of us socially isolated, with no sense of familial or civic responsibility, and little concept of right or wrong. Hopefully we don’t kill people, but at some level we have all become The Stranger. And if not, we are complicit through our silence when such horrors are reported in the news.
Existentialism wasn’t invented by the French, but it feels very French. The idea that we have no destiny or purpose, and are defined only by our actions which we are completely free to choose, sounds the synopsis of a French film. Unfortunately, it also sounds like today’s American politics. We need to look out for each other and vote.