FILM

VIVE LA FRANCE The Film Society of Lincoln Center kicks off its annual series “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2008,” with a screening of Claude Lelouch’s “Roman de gare” (2007). Fanny Ardant stars as Judith, an author who arouses the suspicions of authorities when events in her novels begin to resemble the actions of the Magician, a serial killer who lures victims with card tricks. At the same time, Hugette (Audrey Dana, right), who has just been dumped and abandoned by her boyfriend, sees a man performing card tricks for children and takes him up on his offer of a ride. The director introduces both Friday screenings of his multi-story thriller. Friday, 6:30 and 9 p.m., FSLC, Walter Reade Theater, 70 Lincoln Center Plaza near 65th Street, 212-875-5600, $11 general, $7 students and members.

DANCE

THE WOMAN AND THE SEA The Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College presents an evening with the Richmond Ballet, which dances premieres by a member of the American Ballet Theatre faculty, Jessica Lang. Ms. Lang’s “To Familiar Spaces in Dream” depicts the piano as muse and is set to the music of Philip Glass, John Cage, and Craig Armstrong. “Women and the Sea: A Tribute to Will Barnet” is inspired by the paintings of the New York-based artist. The performance is followed by a Q&A session. Saturday, 8 p.m., Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, Walt Whitman Theatre at Brooklyn College, 2900 Campus Rd. at Hillel Place, Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, 718-951-4500, $25.

DESIGN

HAUTE COMMODES New work by the contemporary French sculptor Ingrid Donat is on view at Barry Friedman Ltd. The exhibit features Ms. Donat’s richly textured, limited edition bronze-cast furniture. Ms. Donat’s aesthetic combines tribal, classical, and Modern sources, and recalls the stylistic influence of colonial Africa, Central and South America, and Oceania on French artists and designers of the 1920s and ’30s. Highlights include her low-lying tables, which evoke the handcrafted detail of ancient African masks. Through Saturday, March 15, Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Barry Friedman Ltd., 515 W. 26th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-239-8600, free.

FILM

PERCHANCE TO DREAM A screening and roundtable discussion of “Secrets of a Soul: A History of Psychoanalysis and Cinema” is presented by the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. The dramatic film, directed by G.W. Pabst in 1926, was perhaps the first to explore the mystifying process of the interpretation of dreams. At a time when film studios were seeking to capitalize on the public’s growing interest in the science of sleep, officials at the production company Kulturfilm consulted members of Sigmund Freud’s inner circle in making this thriller. In it, Werner Krauss — who played the deranged title role in 1921’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” — plays a scientist who is tormented by an irrational fear of knives and a nagging compulsion to murder his wife. Panelists at the talk include the director of the Weill Cornell Institute for the History of Psychiatry, George Makari; a contributor to The New York Sun, writer Daphne Merkin, and a professor of cinema studies at New York University, Dana Polan. Friday, 7 p.m., the Philoctetes Center, 247 E. 82nd St., between Second and Third avenues, 646-422-0544, free.

GALLERY-GOING

BREAKING FREE Peter Sís is perhaps best known for his recent publication “The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), an illustrated story detailing how Mr. Sís used his art to escape communism in Czechoslovakia. He sought asylum in America in 1982. Drawings from the book, as well as other original works, are on view in “Freedom of Expression: The Art of Peter Sís.” Through Saturday, March 8, Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Mary Ryan Gallery, 527 W. 26th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-397-0669, free.

DISTRACTED MASTERPIECES “Kati Heck: Gsuffa, der eiserne Pomoment,” an exhibit of figurative art concludes Saturday. Included are six large works that depict characters in ambiguous scenarios with cryptic messages scrawled in the backgrounds. The subjects can be disturbing, but reflect the artist’s desire to comment on the world as it is and how it should be. Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Mary Boone Gallery, 745 Fifth Ave., between 57th and 58th streets, 212-752-2929, free.

ART

LENSES AND BRUSHES The Christopher Henry Gallery has mounted two separate exhibits featuring the work of photographer Jimi Billingsley and painter Lynton Wells. Mr. Billingsley’s exhibit, “Spreepark, Lost Paradise, Berlin,” includes shots of abandoned rides at a Berlin amusement park that closed in 2001. Mr. Wells’s exhibit, “Fiction,” features depictions of fairies and demons in fantastical realms such as purgatory. Selections from the exhibits include Mr. Wells’s “What Happened To Good and Evil” (2007), above left, and Mr. Billingsley’s “Swan Army, Berlin, 2004” (2004), above right. Through Monday, March 10, Wednesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., Christopher Henry Gallery, 127 Elizabeth St., between Broome and Grand streets, 212-244-6004, free.

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