WHAT IS THE NEW WAVE?

“ All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.”
– Jean-Luc Godard

This February, the NoDa Film Festival is celebrating the innovative and entertaining movies of the French New Wave. There’s something at the festival for everyone, including a musical, a slapstick comedy, a Hitchcock-like thriller, a stylish science fiction film, a coming-of-age drama, a World War II espionage story, and even a poetic horror movie.

The New Wave was started in the late 1950s by a handful of iconoclastic French directors. The movement took movies away from the big studios and gave them back to the filmmakers themselves. Shot on location and on the fly, French New Wave cinema was smart, irreverent, quirky, and fun. It breathed fresh air into the stodgy climate of the 1950s and inspired moviemakers around the world. Pulp Fiction’s Quentin Tarrantino even named his production company after a New Wave film.

We’re offering some of the undisputed classics of the genre, as well as a few hard-to-find gems you won't find anywhere else! The festival has gone out of its way to present these films in the best possible prints and in their correct aspect ratios. We want you to experience them they way they were meant to be seen — in all their glory on the big screen.

So get out of the cold and enjoy an overview of the French New Wave at the historic Neighborhood Theater. All for free! An open cash bar, popcorn, candy, and other refreshments will be available.

We hope to see you there.

Jeff Jackson
Director, NoDa Film Festival