Born into a working-class family in the South of France, Jean Eustache rose from being a deliveryman and railroad worker to become perhaps the most important filmmaker in the post nouvelle-vague era. Revered by international critics and filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch (who dedicated Broken Flowers to Eustache), his films, apart from his intellectual epic, The Mother and the Whore (screening April 6), are rarely screened and hardly known in the US.

While not entirely complete, this touring series of Eustache’s best work, organized by the French Embassy’s Office of Audiovisual Affairs, will offer the opportunity to view his deeply personal body of work in fresh, newly subtitled prints. The selection also includes Eustache’s second feature, Mes Petites Amoureuses (April 2), one of cinema’s great coming-of-age movies, and Numéro Zéro (April 23), a documentary about the tumultuous life of the director’s grandmother, which was suppressed until this decade.

There are also two programs of Eustache’s amazing short films and featurettes, including the deceptively simple Le Cochon and the jaw-dropping Une Sale Histoire (both screening April 9), as well as the haunting and moving Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes (April 16), featuring a great performance by New Wave stalwart (and star of The Mother and the Whore) Jean-Pierre Leaud.

Eustache’s life and career were cut tragically short when he committed suicide in 1982, leaving a small but powerful legacy of deeply felt and beautifully expressed cinema.

Special thanks to the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Antoine Sebire.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department