La Femme et le pantin,Jacques de Baroncelli,1929,115 minutes

Screening(s):08/11/2026 17:40, Xiaoxitian Art Cinema, Beijing

14/11/2026 17:40, Jiangnan Center, Suzhou

As his train is slowed by heavy snowfall, the wealthy Don Mateo Diaz finds himself bored. He wanders through the carriages and meets Concha Perez, a young and irresistible dancer who drives him wild with desire. Some time later, he runs into her by chance and makes advances toward her. She flees but promises to be his, while never truly giving herself to him… From Seville to Cadiz, she eludes him, then offers him her body, only to reject him all the more afterward. Humiliated in his pride and consumed by jealousy, Don Mateo will pursue his desire in the hope of possessing her.

The film is adapted from the play that Pierre Louÿs and Pierre Frondaie adapted from Pierre Louÿs’s novel (1898). In Firmin Gémier’s 1910 production at the Théâtre Antoine, Régina Badet, the prima ballerina of the Opéra-Comique, shocked audiences of the time with a dance that suggested nudity.

4K restoration carried out in 2020 at the L’Image Retrouvée laboratory (Paris-Bologna) from the film’s original negative, including the flash titles from the original intertitles. This negative corresponds to the version edited for release in France. The Cinémathèque Française had previously restored a foreign version of the film.