Neige

In the early 1980s Juliet Berto slowed the pace of her brilliant performances of the 60s and 70s to embark on a little-seen and still underappreciated directing career. Working with her partner Jean-Henri Roger, the first of these efforts, Neige, is presented in conversation with our week-long retrospective of Juliet Berto’s acting work. In a stunning new restoration, this radically empathetic film finds Berto among a community of characters on the margins in 1980s Pigalle. She stars as Anita, a barmaid at the center of a community of street preachers, sex workers, dealers and users. When a beloved friend (and young drug dealer) is caught by narcotics agents, Anita takes it upon herself to score for his struggling clients. With gorgeous, lived-in street photography and stylish performances, this heartbreaking film shows the same politically committed, cinema-besotted verve of Berto’s better known work as an actress.