DIRECTOR: Patrice Chéreau
PRODUCER: Claude Berri
PRODUCTION CO: Renn Productions
SCREENPLAY: Patrice Chéreau, Danièle Thompson, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas père
PHOTOGRAPHY: Philippe Rousselot
EDITORS: François Gédigier, Hélène Viard
MUSIC: Goran Bregovic
WITH: Isabelle Adjani (Margaret of Valois), Daniel Auteuil (Henri de Bourbon), Jean-Hugues Anglade (Charles IX), Vincent Perez (La Mole), Virna Lisi (Catherine de' Medici), Dominique Blanc (Henriette de Nevers) 

FESTIVALS: Cannes 1994 Special Jury Prize, Best Actress (Virna Lisi)

REVIEWS

“Chéreau’s highest-profile film was also his biggest departure: a lavish, blood-spattered, gold-spangled costume drama starring a trio of French superstars (Isabelle Adjani, Daniel Auteuil, and Vincent Perez). In the heat of the 17th-century Wars of Religion, the ruthless French queen Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi) gives up her daughter Margot (Adjani) in marriage to the prominent Huguenot Henri of Navarre (Auteuil) as a peace offering — while secretly arranging for the mass slaughter of thousands of Protestants. Margot soon falls for a dashing Protestant soldier (Perez); bodice-ripping love scenes, court intrigue, poisonings and beheadings ensue. Chéreau captures it all with gleeful, operatic bravado, setting the movie at a pitch delirious enough to elevate it far beyond traditional period-piece territory. This is a “restored and enriched” version of the film, which debuted [2013] at Cannes in the festival’s Classics section, though the few changes made by Chéreau have not altered its original running time.”

– Film Society Lincoln Center
​
“Chéreau makes us hyperaware of the literal meat of human existence — the deep-rooted longing for companionship and the visceral lust for survival that can be cut short with the flick of an aristocrat’s hand. (These people aren’t the embalmed waxworks of your garden-variety historical epic.) Death seems to linger in every inch of the frame, yet the film lives and breathes like few others.”

– Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York 

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin     
Wednesday, 06 May, 7.30pm

​Canterbury
Monday, 25 May, 7.00pm

​Auckland     
Monday, 08 June, 6.00pm

​Nelson     
Wednesday, 24 June, 6.00pm

Whanganui  
Monday, 06 July, 7.00pm​

​Tauranga  
Wednesday, 19 August, 6.00pm

Palmerston North
​Wednesday, 26 August, 6.00pm
FRENCH CONNECTIONS  >> 
French Connections is presented in
co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France