The 2008 Le French May film programme chronicles a special moment in French history.

As American movie critic Roger Ebert once noted in a review of a French film, May is “a month that has a special ring to the French ear”. For four decades ago, May ’68 revolutionized that Western European country. The revolt first by students later joined by workers, that began in March and ended in early June 1968 and that has come to be simply known as May ’68, resulted in one of the greatest social, cultural and political upheavals in France since the 1789 Revolution.

Credited with having caused the eventual collapse of the government of President Charles De Gaulle, May ’68 also had reverberations in the film world, notably the cancellation of the 1968 Cannes Film Festival. On a more positive note, the year’s events played a major role in shaping an entire generation of filmmakers – some of whom have entered the pantheon of world cinema greats.

That is highlighted in a special selection of 10 films to be screened between May 5 and 28 as part of this year’s Le French May: Unlike the previous four years’ programmes that concentrated on retrospective works by a single director, May ’68: A Dream of Utopia will focus on one watershed moment in 20th century French history.

Broadway Cinematheque director Gary Mak, who had a major hand in organizing it, says the film programme will not focus on the politics of the time, but more on May ’68’s cultural impact on the society, and its generation of directors – which includes leading French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard, two of whose works appear in the programme. At the same time, the selection will enable viewers to see “how these directors visualize their dream, their Utopia, capture the changing values in the society and the flickering human relationships after the events”.

Although none of May ’68: A Dream of Utopia’s featured films were released in 1968 or even in the three years immediately after, more than one depict events set during the year. For example, Bernardo Bertolucci’s Les Rêveurs (The Dreamers) (2003) is a personal love letter to Paris 1968 in the form of a dramatic tale about three young film-loving students and their May 1968 experiences. Similarly, French writer-director Philippe Garrel’s melancholy Les Amants Réguliers (Regular Lovers) (2005) focuses on a youthful individual – in this case, a young poet – caught up in the mood and spirit of May ’68.

The opening film of the programme, Milou en Mai (May Fools) by Louis Malle, may date back to 1990 but takes place in May 1968. Rather than tailing rebellious radicals in the cities, it observes a family gathered for a funeral on a small farm in the countryside. Nonetheless, with one of the mourners being a sometime correspondent for French newspaper Le Monde, word of the unrest does seep through. And while this French farce doesn’t explicitly make any grand statements, at least on one level it is obvious that its assembly of mourners represents French society at large, the group’s transformations mirroring what is happening in the country itself.

One more cinematic work that deserves a special mention has to be Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise (The Chinese) (1967). The winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1967 Venice Film Festival, the oldest film in this year’s programme actually predates May ’68 but presages its events, with a quintet of Marxist-Leninist students trying to find their position in the world on the eve of that momentous period. Gary Mak made a point to announce at the press conference for this year’s Le French May that, thanks to this special programme, Hong Kong is being treated to rare screenings of the only English subtitled print of Godard’s classic in the world!

May ’68: A Dream of Utopia will run from May 5 to 28. Tickets are $60 for screenings at the Broadway Cinematheque and $75 for those at the Palace IFC. For online ticketing and further details (including individual screening dates and times), go to http://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/MAY68/index.html.