French Film Festival 2025
Holly Springs, Mississippi
RUST COLLEGE
F r e n c h F i l m F e s t i v a l Hosted by the Division of Humanities
"For the young who want to go to France."
April 2025
All films are free. Donations will be accepted and are appreciated.
The venue for all screenings: Morehouse Auditorium, Natalie Doxey Fine Arts Building.
FRIDAY APRIL 4
10:00 AM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Read aloud, Doxey room 110. Facilitated by Professor of Mass Comm and Host of WURC 88.1FM, Straight Talks, Sharron Goodman-Hill.
See Me Show Me: Black Women Representation in Television Sitcoms, Dr. Lauryn Jennings.
NOON - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
YOGA on the lawn with Master Yoga teacher and Spanish Profe Rachael LeValley.
3:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Coconut Head Generation, Alain Kassanda
In Nigeria, a group of students from the University of Ibadan organize a film club and transform a small classroom into a space for conversation and impassioned debate.
English; French; Yoruba | English subtitles
(1h 29min)
5:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Colette et Justin, Alain Kassanda
Colette and Justin
A filmmaker interviews his grandparents about their experience of Belgian colonialism.
Lingala; French | English subtitles
(1h 29min)
7:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Haut et Fort, Nabil Ayouch; Choreographer: Khalid Benghrib
Casablanca Beats
A former rapper, is hired to teach hip hop at a cultural center in an underprivileged neighborhood of Casablanca, Morocco. Amidst the challenges of restrictive traditions and issues of identity, religion, and politics, Anas manages to inspire his students, fostering unity and self-expression through the transformative power of hip hop culture.
Arabic | English subtitles
(1h 41min)
9:06 PM - $2 at the door
Train Like An ALPHA
SATURDAY APRIL 5
10:30 AM
Begin the day with an online Somatic Movement Class.
NOON - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Read aloud, Doxey room 110. Facilitated by Professor of Mass Comm and Host of WURC 88.1FM, Straight Talks, Sharron Goodman-Hill.
Scripting the Black Body in Popular Media, Dr. Ronald L. Jackson.
3:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Animated musical comedy film
Linda veut du poulet !, Chiara Malta & Sébastien Laudenbach
Chicken for Linda!
Our cheeky young protagonist, Linda, likes to push the limit. She feels like she’s always blamed. When Linda’s mom finally see things from her perspective, she vows to make up for it by preparing her favorite meal—her late father’s famous chicken—no easy task with the entire town is on strike.
French | English subtitles | Recommended ages: 7+
(1h 13min)
5:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Retour à Séoul, Davy Chou
Return to Seoul
A mercurial 25-year-old — born in South Korea and raised in France by adoptive parents — returns to her motherland in search of answers.
7:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Professor of Piano Maeve Brophy interprets Thelonius Monk's Bright Mississippi.
7:30 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
La Gravité, Cédric Ido
Gravity
Older residents in public housing on the outskirts of Paris find their hard-earned street smarts challenged by a new wave of youth unified around a new drug, a new belief system, and a penchant for telepathic groupthink. But a major cosmic realignment is about to take place.
9:30 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Banel et Adama, Ramata-Toulaye Sy
Banel & Adama
Adama is in line to be chief but doesn’t want the responsibility. Banel insists they not have children in light of economic hardships brought about by drought. A fable-like story imbued with dreamlike imagery and palpable chemistry between the two young lovers.
SUNDAY APRIL 6
NOON - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Sur l'Adamant, Nicolas Philibert
On the Adamant
Master documentarian Nicolas Philibert trains his compassionate eye, skilled powers of observation and detached perspective on the Adamant, a floating center for adults with mental health conditions. The barge, moored on the Seine, offers counseling and art therapy through music, painting, craft, literature and cinema, and even hosts an annual film festival organized by the patients themselves. These creative, witty and sincere people ignite the screen with their genuine talent, passion and humanity.
2:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Special FX film: make-up (prosthetics, skin), animatronics, stage effects (doubles, cables), digital effects (3D)... a combination of techniques.
Le règne animal, Thomas Cailley
Animal Kingdom
The world is hit by a wave of mutations that are gradually transforming some humans into animals. Some of the creatures disappear into a nearby forest, 16-year-old Emile embarks on a life-changing quest. A dystopian environmental tale and winner of the César Award for Best Visual Effects.
French | English subtitles
(1h 10min)
4:30 PM
Read aloud, Doxey room 110.
Revaluing the Black Body: Changing the Visual Narrative, Dr. Thomas Allen Harris.
5:30 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Godard, seul le cinéma, Cyril Leuthy
Godard Cinema
Jean-Luc Godard made more than 140 films. His itinerary followed only one direction: a constant renewal of his art. In this film, Godard talks about his experiments, obsessions and discoveries over the decades of incessant work. But Godard is human, not just a machine who thinks and creates images. He is flesh, blood, emotions.
7:15 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Drôles de guerres, Jean-Luc Godard
Phony Wars
After Jean-Luc Godard's death in September 2022, his long-time collaborator Fabrice Aragno began assembling a film that will never exist: Godard's final film. It is a moving collage of photographs and the last notes handwritten by the film-maker: “Rejecting the billions of alphabetic diktats to liberate the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a necessary and true language by re-turning to the locations of past film shoots, while keeping track of modern times.”
FRIDAY APRIL 11
"Dispelling the persistent myth that Black cinema does not travel well worldwide."
11:00 AM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Read aloud, Doxey room 110.
Where is the Black Barbie? An Analysis of the Media Portrayals of Single Black Women, BreOnna Tindall
3:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Les Filles d'Olfa, Kaouther Ben Hania
Four Daughters
In this hybrid docu-fiction, Tunisian mother of four, Olfa, recounts and re-enacts scenes from her life with her two younger daughters. Olfa’s two older daughters are mysteriously absent, and throughout the film the truth of their disappearance is gradually unveiled. Assembled from a combination of emotionally candid interviews and dramatic re-enactments.
Arabic | English subtitles
(1h 47min)
5:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Dahomey, Mati Diop
The African kingdom of Dahomey, which ruled over its region at the west of the continent until the turn of the 20th century, saw hundreds of its splendid royal artifacts plundered by French colonial troops in its waning days. Now, as 26 of these treasures are set to return to their homeland—now within the Republic of Benin—filmmaker Mati Diop documents their voyage back. As with her layered, supernaturally tinged Atlantics, Diop takes a singular approach to contemporary questions around belonging in our postcolonial world, transforming this rich subject matter into a multifaceted examination of ownership and exhibition, and employing multiple points of view, including—most strikingly—those of the artifacts themselves as they sail in darkness over the ocean to their rightful home. Alternating images of nocturnal melancholy and debates among students at Benin’s University of Abomey-Calavi about what should be done with the objects, Dahomey brilliantly negotiates a lost past and an unsure present.
French | English subtitles
(1h 8min)
7:30 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Saint Omer, Alice Diop
Saint-Omer is a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department in France. In the Saint-Omer court of law, a young novelist, Rama, attends the trial of Laurence Coly, a young woman accused of killing her infant daughter on a beach in northern France. As the trial continues, the words of the accused and witness testimonies shake Rama’s convictions and call into question our own judgement.
French | English subtitles
(1h)
9:30 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Les Cinq Diables, Léa Mysius
The Five Devils
Vicky has a magical gift: she can smell and reproduce any scent of her choosing. She collects these in carefully labelled jars. When her aunt Julia enters their lives, Vicky reproduces her scent and is transported back in time into dark and magical memories, leading her to discover the secret of her own existence.
French | English subtitles
(1h 35min)
SATURDAY APRIL 12
NOON
YOGA on the lawn with Profe Rachael
3:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Animated science fiction thriller film
Mars Express, Jérémie Périn
An animated cyberpunk film. Aline Ruby, an obstinate private detective, and Carlos Rivera, an android replica of his deceased partner, throw themselves in a race against the clock across Mars. They must find Jon Chow, a simple cybernetics student on the run, before the hitmen do.
French | English subtitles
(1h 25min)
5:00 PM
Performance by The Rust College A’Cappella Choir under the direction of Dr. Karl Twyner, Dean of Humanities. The Choir will be performing at The Tabernacle Community Baptist Church in Milwaukee, WI. In March, the choir performed and won top place for their category at the XXXIII Concorso Internazionale in Verona, Italy.
7:30 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Professor of English Sheronda Gipson-Marion will introduce Rewind & Play with a talk on The History of Jazz and resistance.
8:00 PM - Please sign in: FREE TICKET
Rewind & Play, Alain Gomis
In December 1969, legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ended his European concert tour with a performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Before the show, he was invited to appear on a French television program to perform and answer questions in an intimate setting. Using newly discovered footage from this recording, director Alain Gomis reveals the disconnect between Monk and his interviewer, Henri Renaud, whose unwittingly trivializing approach conveys the casual racism and exploitation prevalent in the music industry at large. A fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary with extraordinary rarely-seen performances.
This festival made possible by the generous support of:
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Interviews with the FILMMAKERS
**Click on the links below for interviews.