COUSIN JULES    1972
Directed by Dominque Benicheti
91 minutes
In French (very little dialog) with English subtitles

This is an haunting and absolutely unique film... a movie that captures an almost totally forgotten way of life. It's a total affront to our modern world of acceleration, greed and ipads. It's an ode to the beauty of rural France, the simplicity of daily peasant life, and it took director Dominque Benicheti five years to shoot it. Cousin Jules is unlike any other documentary you have ever seen. The cinematography is lush and wonderfully composed, and there is little feeling of improvisation. The director also took another highly unusual step- she filmed it in extra-widescreen cinemascope, something that was normally only the territory of Hollywood extravaganzas.

Here is a film that focuses on an old couple existing in the French countryside, and nothing more. No murder mystery, no car chases, no guns. It only captures their day to day existence. Nothing is explained in the film, we just watch them and let the images of their lives and rituals sink in. And the result is astounding.

This film had a strange history. Because it was so unusual, it was never picked up by any distributors.... which is a death-warrant for a movie, and means that it was never shown in the cinemas. Therefore it remained virtually unknown for 40 years. Now today, after being lost for all that time, it has resurfaced and has become an artifact of a disappearing lifestyle, of how people once lived amidst nature rather than with technology.

One viewer's response: "This manner of cinema is so rare... and so refreshing. Cousin Jules is a masterpiece of simplicity - as it expresses the slice of life it is revealing. There is no clutter or confusion, just the documentation of a life that has no resemblance to your own. Absolutely perfect. I was blown away."

This will be a high-definition screening of this rare masterpiece.