From the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski to Claire Denis, Oscar winner Juliette Binoche has starred in many of your favorite European arthouse classics, and she’s probably the reason we return to them again and again. This summer, New Yorkers — or any ambitious traveling cinephiles — will have the chance to see many of her all-time greatest performances on 35mm thanks to a new retrospective set for the Quad Cinema in Greenwich Village.
IndieWire exclusively announces “Beautiful Binoche,” which will take place August 4–10 at New York City’s longest-running, four-screen multiplex. In addition to some of the great Binoche titles from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, the Quad Cinema will also present Binoche’s latest film, “Between Two Worlds,” opening from Cohen Media Group on August 11.
The French actress has long made a career playing determined women pulling themselves through confusing situations — from perverse erotic entanglements to political intrigue and isolating grief. The Quad’s “Beautiful Binoche” program features 35mm prints of the psychosexual classic “Damage” (Louis Malle, 1992; see this twisted May-December thriller if you haven’t), which was recently highlighted in Karina Longworth’s podcast series “You Must Remember This”; chilling Cannes Best Director winner “Caché” (Michael Haneke, 2005); and the postmodern Tuscan art rumination “Certified Copy” (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010), which won Binoche her first and only Best Actress prize at Cannes. (She won her Oscar in 1997 for “The English Patient,” beating out Lauren Bacall and even effusively, charmingly apologizing onstage for doing so.)
Also screening on digital formats will be the film that put her on the international map, the Milan Kundera erotic epic “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” (Philip Kaufman, 1988), plus one of the best films of the 1990s, “Three Colors: Blue” (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993), along with “Clouds of Sils Maria” (Olivier Assayas, 2014) and “Let the Sunshine In” (Claire Denis, 2017), her first collaboration with Denis, who directed Binoche last year in “Both Sides of the Blade.”
“If showing a retrospective has to do with seeing an evolution, I can imagine the difficulty of choosing 10 films out of 100,” Binoche said in a statement shared with IndieWire. “Acting in a film has been for me an exploration of my present, life and being, confronting the story of a film and the people I was working with. I mostly had admiration with the artists I had the privilege to work with and often took the chance of a new take as a chance to be closer to the art. Nothing else interests me more than truth, depth and being present. The need of sharing is what gives me purpose. Acting is the best way to be next to people, in their heart, mind and cells.”
See the full program here.
