“ Ménilmontant is an autonomous creation, as sophisticated and demanding as any narrative work of the silent period but without direct imitators. Although Richard Abel has astutely drawn attention to aspects that the film shares with Abel Gance’s La roue , Léon Moussinac’s Le brasier ardent and Coeur fidèle (all three from 1923), any comparison of the film as a whole with these admirable works must underline the intensity, singularity and exceptional rigor of Kirsanoff’s achievement” (P. Adams Sitney, The Cinema of Poetry , 2014).

Organized by Cinémathèque Française, Cineinfinito and CBA