Brattle series focuses on French filmmakers

French film has long been welcomed in Boston, and that tradition grows stronger with a new collaboration between the Brattle Theatre and Cahiers du Cinéma.

The theater has partnered with the renowned French film journal and the cultural services section of the French consulate in Boston for ''La Semaine des Cahiers du Cinéma." The weeklong program brings noted French filmmakers to the area for screenings and discussions of their work.

Director Jacques Doillon and Cahiers editor Jean-Michel Frodon will be on hand for the series, which begins today.

''Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to feature filmmakers who are not only on the rise in France but filmmakers who have been overlooked," says Ned Hinkle, creative director of the Brattle.

Doillon is probably best known in the States for ''Ponette," a poignant 1996 drama about a very young girl dealing with her mother's death. The series combines a mini-retrospective of Doillon's work with a look at films by other directors that have influenced him. The lineup includes Doillon's ''La Vengeance d'Une Femme" and ''La Vie de Famille" as well as Jacques Becker's ''Goupi Mains Rouges" and André Téchiné's rarely screened ''Rendez-Vous."

Frodon has described Doillon's work as a natural fit with the magazine's ideals. Cahiers has been required reading for cinephiles since the '60s. Several of its writers, including Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, became directors who helped launch the New Wave.

Hinkle says the chance to partner with Cahiers was too good to pass up.

''It's incredibly influential, especially when it comes to French cinema," Hinkle says. ''In the past it has been influential to cinema from other countries as well."

‘‘La Semaine des Cahiers du Cinéma’’ runs today through Wednesday at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge. For a full list of movies being shown, visit www.brattlefilm.org.