Accessing rare and previously unseen material, Kaplan scripts, directs, and edits a documentary on the odyssey of her late mentor, Abel Gance, into his magnum opus: the 1927 epic Napoléon, which had been restored and salubriously exhibited mere months before his passing in 1981. Kaplan had already screened the movie several dozen times; a decade later, she would author a British Film Institute book on the film with still more assessments and revelations.

In French with English subtitles

Preceded by

A la source, La Femme Aimée (1966, France, 10m, DCP)

An exploration of the drawings of artist André Masson, characterized by an eroticism that, Kaplan wrote, “propels and consumes him.”

Les années 25 (1965, France, 12m, DCP)

A Roaring Twenties exhibition at a Paris museum is surveyed by Kaplan for this documentary short, narrated by journalist Jacques Paoli.

Gustave Moreau (1961, France, 22m, DCP)

Kaplan’s short venerates the artistry of 19th-century Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, whose body of work was at the time overdue for appreciation.

Total runtime: 104m