NEIGE
(SNOW)
dirs. Juliet Berto & Jean-Henri Roger, 1981
91 mins. France.
In French with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 1 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY DECEMBER 4 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 8 – 10 PM
THURSDAY DECEMBER 16 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 22 – 7:30 PM

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Set during the annual Christmas fair in Paris’ Quartier Pigalle, NEIGE stars French New Wave icon Juliet Berto (LA CHINOISE, CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING) as a hippie barmaid named Anita who looks after a loose network of bohemian down-and-outers: drag queens, homeless youths and wannabe tough guys. After the murder of a teenage drug dealer named Bobby, Anita becomes attached to a bereaved customer of his, going through the hell of withdrawal – and an underworld odyssey ensues. Featuring Robert Liensol (star of Med Hondo’s SOLEIL O) and codirected with Jean-Henri Roger (who had been a member of the Dziga Vertov Group), Berto’s bitterly humanist directorial debut shared the Contemporary Cinema Prize at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.

“Indebted to the boilerplate romans de gare that are ubiquitous in France, NEIGE commingles danger with low-rent spectacle, never pretending to tamp down the carnival atmosphere of the drag where the vast majority of action unfolds. NEIGE is rife with details that would be absent from a more commercial-minded film: decrepit merry-go-rounds, smeared lipstick, a flickering neon windmill outside the Moulin Rouge, tea gone cold. It’s tempting to posit NEIGE as a hidden bridge between the Nouvelle Vague and the subsequent generation’s cinema du look: drunken street poetry shot through pop realism.” – Daryl J. Williams, Cinema Scope

“Berto and Roger were grunge before grunge.” – Dave Kehr, Curator, Museum of Modern Art

Special thanks to Jane Roger, JHR Films, Rialto Pictures and Adrienne Halpern (Studio Canal).