French language and culture
on the shores of Lake Champlain

French Book Swap

Refresh your collection of French-language books!  Come to the French Book Swap!

Burlington Social Hour

Our longest-running monthly social hour, on the last Friday of every month.  

Croissants et Conversation

A social hour for novice French speakers!  

VTIFF: "Labrador: Autopsy of Silence" (2026)

Directed by Rodrigue Jean
Canada | 2026 | Fiction | 120 min | French, English, Inuktitut w/ subtitles

Labrador: Autopsy of Silence (French: Labrador - Autopsie du silence) is a Canadian crime thriller, directed by Rodrigue Jean. It Christopher Angatookalook as Alupa Tulugak, an Inuk mechanic working on a cargo ship supplying remote communities in Labrador, who becomes a murder suspect after his lover Alex (Alexandre Landry), the ship's cook, turns up dead. The film won Best international feature at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Writes Nikki Baughan in Screen Daily, "In keeping with its central characters, this claustrophobic pressure-cooker tension never reaches fever-pitch but is kept simmering by Laverdiere’s evocative cinematography, which contrasts the desolate, industrial external landscape, wrought in cold blues and greys, with the warm intimacy between Alex and Alupa." Writes VTIFF's Steve MacQueen, "Jean manages to balance the murder mystery alongside his more potent observations on the imbalances of power, sexuality, class, and privilege."

Middlebury: "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" (2024)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’état
Director Johan Grimonprez, 2024

Click here to watch the English trailer.

Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba.

Albertine Cinémathèque French Film Festival at Middlebury College.
All films are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

VTIFF: "Dao" (2026)

Director: Alain Gomis
Countries of filming: Senegal, France, Guinea-Bissau
Release year: 2026
Run time: 185 min
Languages: French, Wolof, Manjak, and Portuguese Creole w/ subtitles

This sprawling epic is an inquiry into diaspora. Gloria (Katy Correa) and her biracial daughter Nour (D’Johé Kouadio) are an African immigrant duo living in France. Two family ceremonies anchor the film: the festive wedding of Nour, held in the suburbs of Paris, and the traditional funerary rites for Gloria’s father, held in Guinea-Bissau. Two heritages and two ceremonies: the film moves back and forth between them, as we encounter Gloria and Nour with their large extended family on two continents, unfolding their joys, heartaches, and blessings. It’s an unconventional film. Apart from the two ceremonies, the plot is minimal. The film meanders, free form, for 3 hours and 5 minutes. You won’t mind. The Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis builds bridges between continents, between ancestors and descendants, between past and present, between spirit and nature, between life and death. The film speeds and slows reflecting the rhythms of life.