The Burlington–Honfleur Sister Cities Committee invites the public to a special screening of The Mystery of Satie (Le mystère Satie), a poetic documentary, followed by an in-person discussion with the filmmaker Bastien Loukia, on Thursday, October 8, 2026, at BCA Community Room, 405 Pine Street, Burlington VT. Admission is free.
The film re-examines the life, contradictions, and enduring legacy of Erik Satie, the influential and unconventional French composer born in Honfleur, France—Burlington’s sister city. It follows Satie’s journey from his Normandy birthplace to fin-de-siècle Paris and Montmartre, where his spare, haunting music, eccentric personality, and irreverent approach to artistic convention helped shape the emergence of musical modernism.
Drawing upon rare archival materials, evocative imagery, and accounts from Satie’s time, the documentary explores Satie’s relationships with such celebrated figures as Claude Debussy, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso, while illuminating his lasting influence on avant-garde music and art.
Released in July 2025 to commemorate the centenary of Satie’s death in 1925, The Mystery of Satie serves as a companion to Loukia’s earlier graphic novel about the composer, Erik Satie, cinq nouvelles en forme de poire.
The evening will offer Burlington audiences a special connection to Honfleur through both its celebrated composer and a contemporary filmmaker and artist from the city. The filmmaker Bastien Loukia will be present for the screening and will participate afterward in a conversation about the film, Satie, and their shared hometown. Several other visitors from Honfleur will be present as well. The discussion will be moderated by Fran Stoddard.
Doors open at 6:00 p.m., with light appetizers served before the screening.
The event is presented by the Burlington–Honfleur Sister Cities Committee, which promotes cultural exchange and friendship between Burlington and Honfleur, the historic Normandy port city where Erik Satie was born in 1866.
EVENT DETAILS
What: The Mystery of Satie (Le mystère Satie), film screening and discussion with filmmaker Bastien Loukia
When: Thursday, October 8; doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Where: BCA Community Room, Pine Street, Burlington, Vermont
Post-screening discussion: Bastien Loukia, moderated by Fran Stoddard
Admission: Free and open to the public
Refreshments: Light appetizers and finger foods will be served
Join us for an evening of film, music, conversation, and international friendship—and an opportunity to discover this intriguing artistic figure through the eyes of a filmmaker from his own hometown.
MORE ABOUT THE FILM
The Mystery of Satie is a poetic and visually rich documentary that re-examines the life and legacy of Erik Satie, the eccentric French composer who shaped the sound and spirit of modernity. Long before minimalism, ambient music, or surrealism, Satie stood apart—mocked by some, revered by others—as a visionary who quietly revolutionized 20th-century art.
Through rare archives, evocative imagery, and insightful testimonies, filmmaker Bastien Loukia takes us from Satie’s birthplace in Honfleur to the bohemian heart of fin-de-siècle Paris, where he crossed paths with Debussy, Cocteau, Picasso, and the avant-garde of Montmartre. Set against the dazzling turmoil of the Belle Époque and the dawn of modernism, the film unveils a man at once fragile and prophetic—a composer, thinker, and provocateur whose music still speaks to our contemporary sensibility.
Far from a conventional biopic, The Mystery of Satie explores the paradoxes of an artist who sought simplicity in a world rushing toward excess, and who, a century ahead of his time, anticipated the musical revolutions that would echo across Europe and America.