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: "La Gradiva" (2026)

Directed by Marine Atlan
France, Italy | 2026 | Fiction | 145 min | French, Italian w/ subtitles

This film is a coming-of-age drama directed by Marine Atlan in her feature  directorial debut, co-written with Anne Brouillet. It follows a French high school class as they travel to Pompeii shortly before their graduation. At the 79th Cannes Film Festival it won the Critics' Week section's Grand Prize and was nominated for the Caméra d'Or and Queer Palm. It received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for the screenplay and Atlan's direction. Writes VTIFF's Oliver O'Sullivan, "The region and its mythology provide a rich backdrop for the simmering angst and romantic entanglements the group brings to this radiant seaside setting most famous for catastrophes and pizza: the ambiguous friendship between classmates Toni and James, Toni's parallel search for traces of his family history in the region, the futile efforts of harried teacher Mercier to cut through her students’ all-consuming ambivalence, and perceptive tertiary characters nurturing their own private ennui. "

VTIFF: "All of a Sudden" (2026)

Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
France, Japan, Germany, Belgium | 2026 | Fiction | 196 min | French, Japanese w/ subtitles

All of a Sudden (French: Soudain) is a co-production between France, Japan, Germany and Belgium. Virginie Efira stars as the director of a nursing home in the Parisian suburbs who attempts to introduce a humane care technique known as Humanitude. Her life is changed when she meets a terminally ill Japanese playwright. Writes VTIFf's Oliver O'Sullivan: "Packaged within this intimate drama is a meditative celebration of irreducible human compassion, delivered with Hamaguchi’s signature skill for proportion, that gently erodes your cynicism. There’s no denying that Hamaguchi is working at a very high level right now, and this generous movie—full of inhabited performances, theatricality, and unassuming visual mastery." All of a Sudden has received widespread critical acclaim, with special praise for its direction, screenplay and acting. It was selected as the Japanese entry for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards.

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."