Veronica Project Space Presents DESSILLER LES YEUX: Four by Jean Vigo
Fri Nov 13:
Admission is Free! Please RSVP to reserve your seat!
Jean Vigo
France
1930-1934
2h 45m
About
Veronica Project Space is pleased to present the complete filmography of the inimitable Jean Vigo.
In his brief 29 years, Vigo established a cinema of poetic realism fusing humanistic stories with surreal sequences that ooze of craft. While divisive in his time, Vigo’s work gained a resurgence of interest through posthumous praise from critics, including his daughter Luce, that deeply influenced the French New Wave movement.
The four films in this presentation (a mix of documentary and narrative) are warm and surprisingly innovative offerings to the art of cinema that remain timelessly impactful to audiences and filmmakers nearly a century onward.
Friday, November 13, 2026, 7pm
165 min.
Free admission for this program.
Images, films, and individual synopses provided by Janus Films.
FILMS IN THIS PROGRAM:
À propos de Nice
(1930, 23 min, in French with English subtitles)
Jean Vigo was twenty-five when he made this, his debut film, a silent cinematic poem that reveals, through a thrilling and ironic use of montage, the economic reality hidden behind the facade of the Mediterranean resort town of Nice. The first of Vigo’s several collaborations with cinematographer Boris Kaufman (Dziga Vertov’s brother and a future Oscar winner), À propos de Nice is both a scathing and invigorating look at 1930 French culture.
Synopsis courtesy of Janus Films
Taris
(1931, 9 min, in French with English subtitles)
An inventive short portrait of French swimming champion Jean Taris.
Synopsis courtesy of Janus Films
Zéro de conduite
(1933, 44 min, in French with English subtitles)
So effervescent and charming that one can easily forget its importance in film history, Jean Vigo’s enormously influential portrait of prankish boarding-school students is one of cinema’s great acts of rebellion. Based on the director’s own experiences as a youth, _Zéro de conduite_ presents childhood as a time of unfettered imagination and brazen rule-flouting. It’s a sweet-natured vision of sabotage made vivid by dynamic visual experiments—including the famous, blissful slow-motion pillow fight.
Synopsis courtesy of Janus Films
L’Atalante
(1934, 89 min, in French with English subtitles)
In Jean Vigo’s hands, an unassuming tale of conjugal love becomes an achingly romantic reverie of desire and hope. Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain, marries Juliette (Dita Parlo), an innocent country girl, and the two climb aboard Jean’s boat, the L’Atalante—otherwise populated by an earthy first mate (Michel Simon) and a multitude of mangy cats—and embark on their new life together. Both a surprisingly erotic idyll and a clear-eyed meditation on love, L’Atalante, Vigo’s only feature-length work, is a film like no other.
Synopsis courtesy of Janus Films
Click for Accessibility Info
Ticketing, concessions, cinemas, restrooms, and our public edit lab are located on Northwest Film Forum’s ground floor, which is wheelchair accessible. All doors in Northwest Film Forum are non-motorized, and may require staff assistance to open. Our upstairs workshop room is not wheelchair accessible.
The majority of seats in our main cinema are 21″ wide from armrest to armrest; some seats are 19″ wide. We are working on creating the option of removable armrests!
We have a limited number of assistive listening devices available for programs hosted in our larger theater, Cinema 1. These devices are maintained by the Technical Director, and can be requested at the ticketing and concessions counter. Also available at the front desk is a Sensory Kit you can borrow, which includes a Communication Card, noise-reducing headphones, and fidget toys.
The Forum does NOT have assistive devices for the visually impaired, and is not (yet) a scent-free venue. Our commitment to increasing access for our audiences is ongoing, and we welcome all public input on the subject!
If you have additional specific questions about accessibility at our venue, please contact our Patron Services Manager at suji@nwfilmforum.org. Our phone number (206-329-2629) is voicemail-only, but we check it often.
Made possible due to a grant from Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, in partnership with Sensory Access, our Sensory Access document presents a visual and descriptive walk-through of the NWFF space. View it in advance of attending an in-person event at bit.ly/nwffsocialnarrativepdf, in order to prepare yourself for the experience.
⚠️ COVID-19 Policies ⚠️
NWFF patrons are encouraged to wear masks that cover both nose and mouth while in the building. Disposable masks are available at the door for those who need them. Recent variants of COVID-19 readily infect and spread between individuals regardless of vaccination status.
Read more about NWFF’s policies regarding cleaning, masks, and capacity limitations here.