A French New Wave master’s breakthrough film, lost in a fire and miraculously resurrected. Russian premiere of the restored copy as part of the retrospective programme of the Festival of Films Regained.
Mad Love
- Date:
- 27 Sep 2025,
14:00–17:20
- Age restrictions
- 18+
L’amour fou
1969, Jacques Rivette
France
245 minutes, French with Russian subtitles
Starring: Bulle Ogier, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, André S. Labarthe, Josée Destoop
T
A TV crew is set to film the rehearsals of a famous theater troupe. Director Sebastien is head over heels in experimentation; meanwhile, his wife Claire, who plays the lead in the show, abandons the project to construct her own paranoid reality—a bizarre reflection of her toxic marriage to Sebastian.
Shot form Mad Love, 1969
This film captures the dreams and desperation of the ’60s like few others, and you emerge from it changed.
— Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader
Mad Love is a movie about the disintegration of relationships or, alternatively, about the amalgamation of life and art. It’s shattering all the clichés to reveal an epic vision of life in all its complexity. In 1974, the original negative was destroyed by a fire, and the picture did not see restoration until 2023.
