Faits-Divers - 9 Films from France, 1979-1994

Sunday May 24th, 2026 @8pm
Le Petit Versailles, 247 East 2nd St.

Film Screening w/ Carlos Saldaña and Francisco Algarín Navarro, guest curators. 

This program brings together nine films by different filmmakers from the scene of the French avant-garde of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, who worked intertwining personal and formal cinema, the exploration of intimacy and of the possibilities of the moving image through a fascinating and varied series of optical strategies and devices. These films have rarely or never been shown in the United States, and this selection invites you to discover a fragment of the rich history of French avant-garde cinema.

Program:

Systema (Françoise Thomas, 1984, 4’)

Radio-Serpent (Unglee, 1980, 12’)

Divers-épars (yann beauvais, 1987, 12’)

Swimmer (Michael Mazière, 1987, 6’)

Sécan ciel (version courte) (Jean-Michel Bouhours, 1979, 4’)

Parcelle (Rose Lowder, 1979, 3’)

Palme d’or (Marcelle Thirache, 1993, 4’)

Log Abstract - 1988 (Scott Hammen, 1988, 16’)

New York Long Distance (yann beauvais, 1994, 9’)

16mm prints courtesy of Light Cone, Paris.

Francisco Algarín Navarro (Sevilla, 1983) is an independent writer, editor, and film curator. His work focuses on the dissemination of experimental, queer, and feminist approaches to analog film. He wrote a monograph about Jacques Rivette and has edited books on correspondences between filmmakers, Mani Kaul, Jean-Claude Rousseau, Jeannette Muñoz, Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler, and will soon publish on Warren Sonbert, Sandra Lahire & Sarah Pucill, and Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki. 

Carlos Saldaña (Jerez de la Frontera, 1996) is a film preservationist and programmer. He has edited books on Mani Kaul, Jean-Claude Rousseau, Frans van de Staak, Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler, and will soon publish on Warren Sonbert, Sandra Lahire & Sarah Pucill, and Maria Klonaris & Katerina Thomadaki. He also shoots on film and video.