Media Manipulations: Three Centuries of Sensationalism & Scandal in New French Film, this year’s Williams French Film Festival. The festival features recent films from France that focus on sensationalism and scandal in the media. From nineteenth-century Parisian journalists in Xavier Giannoli’s Lost Illusions (2021), to twentieth-century criminality in François Ozon’s The Crime is Mine (2023), to twentieth-first-century news media in Bruno Dumont’s France (2021), these films examine the scandalous, criminal, and comical effects of charlatan reporters, tabloid sensationalism, social media, and so-called fake news. All films are in French with English subtitles, and are free and open to the public

Feb. 13: Lost Illusions
Feb. 20: The Crime is Mine
Feb. 27: France