Lucky Chance, a gambling film festival

17 februari 2026
fc dollyshot (Laura en Kleo)

From Casino to Ocean’s 13. Many famous films have been made about casinos. And for good reason. Cinema and the casino share a multitude of similarities that bind them together in an escapist, unpredictable illusion, a collective, thrilling experience unfolding in the dark corners of the city.

For our third film festival, we at fc dollyshot chose to focus on films about the casino, about hustlers and gamblers, about that fascinating moment when the dice is in the air, all bets are off, rien ne va plus. Stories about people who go all in: in the game, in love, in life. This tension between triumph and tragedy, glamour and loneliness flourishes equally in the velvet seats of the cinema and on the gaming tables of the casino.

Gambling is such a compelling activity to depict on film because it often functions as a metaphoric space where luck, strategy, and morality collide. They are environments of instant consequence, where decisions lead to direct, often irreversible outcomes. Every roll of the dice, every spin of the wheel carries the potential for both triumph and catastrophe.

Casinos also embody exuberance and freedom, inviting characters to test themselves emotionally and ethically, and inviting audiences to wonder what they themselves would risk for a chance at something greater. A single high-stakes game can spark an entire philosophical meditation on luck, chance, and fate. Gambling lends itself beautifully to juxtaposing glamour and ecstasy with the darker realities of addiction, loneliness, and compulsion. There is something deeply cinematic to the unpredictability of both the casino and the cinema: both offer escapism, both suspend ordinary time, and both ask us to surrender control.

There is something deeply cinematic to the unpredictability of both the casino and the cinema: both offer escapism, both suspend ordinary time, and both ask us to surrender control.

We deliberately select films you may not have seen, or perhaps have had on your watchlist for a long time. Either way: films that are definitely worth your time. For this edition, we chose five films that show different sides of the gambling life, but more importantly, five films that are outstanding works of cinema in their own right.

This gambling life
We open the festival on Friday with The Hustler (1961), Robert Rossen’s classic drama starring Paul Newman. The film follows small-time pool hustler “Fast Eddie” Felson, who challenges the legendary player “Minnesota Fats.” The pool table becomes a mirror for Eddie’s internal struggle between control and risk, mastery and self-destruction. Set in the smoky pool halls of postwar America, the film depicts the compulsion of the game, the addiction to feeling superior, to beating someone else. But it also shows the emptiness that follows victory, the destruction of both the self and one’s surroundings that comes with high-stakes play.

Pool differs from other gambling games because it relies heavily on physical skill; risk here is tied to stamina, masculinity, and self-control. Formally, the film’s long takes of bodies waiting, watching, leaning perform the same suspense-building function as a roulette wheel. The Hustler repeatedly demonstrates that talent is insufficient, and that money, success, and love are incompatible. Pool becomes the perfect testing ground because skill is visible, money is immediate, and competition is direct. If the American Dream works anywhere, it should work here—and it doesn’t.

On Saturday, we screen two films that deal directly with the gambling life. Jacques Demy’s Bay of Angels (1963) explores the ennui, the impulse to place one’s life in the hands of the dice simply because one no longer knows where to go. Love itself becomes a game of chance. In this film, the platinum-blonde and perpetually enigmatic Jeanne Moreau plays Jackie, a gambling addict, opposite Claude Mann as Jean, a bank clerk who is drawn into her risky world. What follows is a dreamlike Demy odyssey through casinos, hotel suites, cars, and couture.

For Jackie, life itself is nothing more than a gamble. She has already traded in her husband, child, and wealth for the gaming table, allowing chance to determine where she ends up. Jean, naturally more cautious, permits himself to live this way for a few days, unsure whether Jackie is a winning or losing number, yet deciding to go all in. Glamour and tragedy have rarely been so close together. The plot itself embodies the essence of gambling: nothing is linear or predictable, everything revolves around chance and luck.

Masahiro Shinoda’s Pale Flower (Kawaita Hana, 1964) offers a very different perspective. Set in the dark world of yakuza and clandestine gambling dens, the film unfolds as a Japanese variation on classic American film noir. Ryō Ikebe plays Muraki, a yakuza who is drawn back into the criminal underworld after his release from prison. There he enters an intense, self-destructive relationship with Saeko, a gambling-addicted woman who craves ever-higher stakes to fill an inner void.

Pale Flower also carries a clear allegorical dimension, something Shinoda himself alluded to. Muraki can be read as a stand-in for Japan’s position in the world during the Cold War: a nation caught between larger forces beyond its control, suspended helplessly between the United States and the Soviet Union, still searching for a postwar identity. Muraki’s impotence – his inability to act meaningfully or decisively – mirrors Japan’s geopolitical paralysis in this period. Another key figure, Yoh, functions allegorically as well. Yoh represents China, which at the time was still largely unknown to Japan but loomed as a vast, threatening, and unpredictable presence, something distant yet inevitably approaching.

Pale Flower unfolds as a Japanese variation on classic American film noir.

 

In keeping with classic film noir, Muraki is a protagonist without a moral compass, without soul or conscience. As one critic aptly put it, “No matter where he turns, Muraki can find no savior.” Shinoda later described this sense of moral void as “a feeling shared by many of my generation.” What draws Muraki and Saeko together is precisely this nihilism: the belief that life is only bearable when something is at stake, when danger is present. They feel most alive only at the edge of destruction. Gambling here is not about money or even pleasure, but about flirting with annihilation.
Pale Flower belongs to the Japanese New Wave of the early 1960s, marked by visual experimentation and taboo subjects such as crime, sexuality, and drugs. Although yakuza films were popular at the time, none were as formally daring or sonically radical. Considered immoral by its studio Shochiku, the film was shelved for months before its release in 1964, after which it became a major success.

On Sunday, we shift tone again with Any Number Can Win (Mélodie en sous-sol). Thanks to blockbusters like the Ocean’s trilogy, the casino has become synonymous not only with gambling but also with the classic heist.

This film connects two generations of French cinema icons. Jean Gabin plays Charles, a criminal determined to pull off one final job after years in prison. In Cannes, he targets the Palm Beach Casino and recruits Francis, a former cellmate played by Alain Delon. The film meticulously follows the preparation of the robbery, focusing not on violence or spectacle but on precision, timing, and the evolving relationship between the two men. The tension arises from the contrast between Charles’s calm experience and Francis’s reckless confidence, with glances and gestures carrying more weight than dialogue.

Up to this point, all films in the selection share not only their focus on gambling but also their origin in the 1960s, and this is no coincidence. The postwar economic boom meant people had money to spend, and capitalism increasingly equated money with success. Casinos promised rapid fortune, while cinema was undergoing radical transformation. In France and Japan alike, New Wave movements brought fresh energy, danger, moral ambiguity, and a fascination with youth living fast lives, refusing bourgeois mentality. Gambling fit these aesthetics perfectly. Yet these movements treated chance differently across continents. In Europe, chance often signifies freedom; in Japan, it becomes a death drive; in America, it appears as moral failure.

Edward Yang’s Mahjong (1996) stands apart in several ways. It is the only film from the 1990s, the only one in color, and the only comedy in the program. We chose it above all because it is an inventive, clever film, but also as a nod to our very first festival, which focused on the Taiwan New Wave.

Despite its title, there is very little literal mahjong played on screen. Instead, the game functions as a metaphor for the social environment the characters inhabit. The film follows four young men in Taipei who con other con artists while evading enemies linked to Red Fish’s father, a debt-ridden entrepreneur. The group includes the gentle gigolo Hong Kong, the superstitious feng shui advisor Little Buddha, and the thoughtful Luen Luen, who begins a romance with Marthe, a French newcomer. While the plot begins with chases and family conflicts, the true focus lies in the kaleidoscopic network of characters navigating survival and social maneuvering in a rapidly globalizing city. Yang’s familiar themes persist: East-West confrontation, urban alienation, and the tension between public and private life.

Despite its title, there is very little literal mahjong played on screen. Instead, the game functions as a metaphor for the social environment the characters inhabit.

The game of mahjong mirrors this world perfectly. It is a game of strategy and chance, luck and skill. Like the game, the characters act independently while constantly affecting one another, never seeing the full picture. Mahjong is an old Chinese game, but Yang places it in 1990s Taipei, saturated with Western brands, expats, scams, and cultural dislocation. This contrast underscores the loss of moral grounding in fast-capitalist society. There are no real winners, only arbitrary victories, lingering resentment, and repetition. Even those who appear successful are empty. Exploitation replaces connection. Marthe, as a moral outsider unfamiliar with the rules, makes the cruelty of the system more visible.

Mahjong is the darkest film in Yang’s oeuvre, often misunderstood in the West for its abrasive tone. Critics mistook its moral disgust for nihilism, assuming Yang endorsed his characters. In reality, the coldness is a refusal to sentimentalize.

All these films are rarely shown, perhaps because they have been forgotten, perhaps because some of them are very expensive to screen. We hope you appreciate the selection we have made and invite you to surrender yourself to the thrilling journey that is this festival.