FILM & VIDEO

Potiche: The provincial French town, POTICHE is a free adaptation of the eponymous hit comic play. Catherine Deneuve is Suzanne Pujol, a submissive housebound ‘trophy housewife’ (or “potiche”) who steps in to manage her wealthy and tyrannical husband (Fabrice Luchini)’s umbrella factory after the workers go on strike and take him hostage. To everyone’s surprise, Suzanne proves herself a competent and assertive woman of action. But when her husband returns from a restful cruise in top form, things get complicated. Gérard Depardieu plays a former union leader and Suzanne’s ex-beau who still holds a flame for her. Acclaimed writer-director François Ozon (“Swimming Pool,” “Under the Sand,” “Time to Leave,”) who had previously directed Ms. Deneuve in the international hit “8 Women,” twists the original play on its head to create his own satirical and hilarious take on the war between the sexes and classes.

Bill Cunningham: The “Bill” in question is 80+ New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. For decades, this Schwinn-riding cultural anthropologist has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirées for the Times Style section in his columns “On the Street” and “Evening Hours.” Documenting uptown fixtures (Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller—who all appear in the film out of their love for Bill), downtown eccentrics and everyone in between, Cunningham’s enormous body of work is more reliable than any catwalk as an expression of time, place and individual flair. In turn, Bill Cunningham New York is a delicate, funny and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace.