11th Austin New French Cinema Week Opens Tonight: Six French Films Screen Over Four Days, Opening-Night Director in Attendance
In Austin, Travis County, Texas, the 11th annual New French Cinema Week opened on the evening of November 12 at the AFS Cinema and runs through November 15, screening six new French-language films over four days. Valéry Carnoy, director of the opening-night film Wild Foxes, traveled to Austin for the screening and an in-person question-and-answer session with the audience.
An opening-night reception in the cinema lobby preceded the screening of Wild Foxes, Carnoy's feature debut, a 92-minute Belgium-France co-production from 2025, in French with English subtitles. Its protagonist, Camille, is a champion boxer at a French boarding school for elite athletes whose training and future are thrown into question by a terrible accident. The film was a selection of the Cannes Directors' Fortnight and won the Best Actor award at the Premiers Plans Festival in Angers, France.
The remaining five films screen over the following three days. On November 13 comes La Gradiva, the feature debut of celebrated cinematographer Marine Atlan, which took the top prize at Cannes Critics' Week last May and follows a group of 17-year-olds on a school trip to Naples. November 14 brings two films: A Man of His Time, winner of Best Screenplay at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and set against the Vichy government of wartime France, and Shana, a dark comedy by rising director Lila Pinell. The festival closes on November 15 with That Summer in Paris, set against the backdrop of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and the closing-night selection Flesh & Fuel, a neo-realist romance about long-distance truck drivers.
New French Cinema Week is presented by the Austin Film Society in partnership with the Premiers Plans Film Festival and the 400 Coups Cinemas of Angers, France, Austin's sister city, with support from Villa Albertine and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Many of the selections have yet to be distributed in the United States. Festival passes and individual tickets are on sale.
The Austin Film Society was founded in 1985 by filmmaker Richard Linklater and is a registered nonprofit organization. Its AFS Cinema is the city's arthouse theater, presenting repertory series, restorations and independent films alongside industry events such as the Texas Film Awards.
Source: Austin Film Society
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：德克萨斯州 Austin 市中心晚霞天际线，本届法国新电影周在当地 AFS Cinema 举行。Stuart Seeger 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Image: The downtown Austin, Texas, skyline at dusk; this year's New French Cinema Week is held at the AFS Cinema in Austin. Photo by Stuart Seeger, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
