OPENS NOV. 20

French director Louis Malle, who died in November 1995, made some 25 features, which is reason enough to divide this retrospective between two venues, the National Gallery and the American Film Institute. But there’s another motive to split them: Unlike some filmmakers who use documentaries merely as a training ground, Malle never abandoned nonfiction. The National Gallery of Art surveys this side of the director’s career, opening with Place de la République (at 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20), which collates 10 days of on-the-street interviews. The other works include My Dinner With André (at 12:30 and 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 26), a luminous dinner conversation/theater piece, and two linked documentaries, Calcutta (at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4) and the six-hour Phantom India (in three installments, at 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, and Friday, Dec. 2; 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, and Friday, Dec. 9; and 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, and Friday, Dec. 16). At the American Film Institute (where The Fire Within, pictured, screens), the fiction fare encompasses such New Wave landmarks as the recently revived Elevator to the Gallows (at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23, 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25, and 6:40 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29) and the live-action cartoon Zazie Dans le Métro (at 9:50 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23, 7:20 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25, and 9:20 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 27), as well as his later movies, including such Hollywood fare as Atlantic City (at 8:10 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, and 6:35 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22). The series runs through Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006, at the National Gallery of Art East Building auditorium, 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, free, (202) 737-4215, and at the AFI’s Silver Theater and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, $9.25, (301) 495-6700. (Mark Jenkins)