Dominique Thomas

The Ponzi Scheme

Ponzi, from his arrival in Boston in 1903, to hi death in Rio in 1949. He made himself famous in inventing the first fraud of modern times on a large scale, and inspired Bernard Madoff.

Bluebeard

Anne reads her younger sister, Marie-Catherine, the story of Bluebeard. In 17th-century France, another set of sisters — also named Anne and Marie-Catherine — are left impoverished by their father's death. Marie-Catherine dreams of marrying into money, and soon falls for wealthy divorcé Bluebeard. Grateful for the chance at a life of comfort, Marie-Catherine marries Bluebeard — in spite of rumors that he has made a hobby of murdering his wives.

22 Bullets

A retired mobster goes on a revenge spree after being left for dead with 22 bullets in his body by his former childhood friend.

L'Âme sœur

Remi and Valentina are two angels who love each other for 2000 years. Old Balthazar does not let them meet in Paradise, so they meet in Paris. She is a Spanish rock star who gets assassinated. He works in the funeral home to which she is brought. One touch of Remi and she comes back to life, only to die again because she can't live in his absence.

Atomic Summer

Victor, in his early 20s, works at the town hall and lives with his girlfriend Charlotte, who is expecting their first child. When an incident happens at the nearby nuclear power plant, he and his high school friends are forced to confine themselves inside a farmhouse, whereas they should have evacuated the area. As the rain is threatening, they are keeping an eye out for the radioactive cloud. The next 24 hours will be crucial.

Jean-Philippe

A bourgeois office drone whose raison d'être is the music of French rocker Johnny Hallyday awakens one day in an alternate universe where the famed musician never recorded a single song. When he’s not at the office dutifully plugging-away, Fabrice lives a deadly dull life.

Jamais 2 sans 3

One evening, Etienne, a police officer from the BAC, and Christian, his teammate, witness the assault of a young girl. But the killer manages to escape, seriously injuring Christian. Shortly after, Etienne discovers, on the one hand, that Angèle, the woman who left him seven months earlier, is about to give birth and that his new boss, Alex Le Guen, is none other than the man he spent the night with after a drunken evening.

Waiter!

Mathieu, a waiter at the Abbaye's restaurant, will have to face the worst client he has ever been able to serve.

Journey to a Land Otherwise Known

In a film, meeting a strange tribe often starts with the plunging view from a building necessary to the journey. The architecture of Jean-Pierre Secq dubbed the noise of the waves washes over us in this way. However, to open it, the construction was massive and still, unfolding the three concrete wings of this equatorial greenhouse in Lille. This essay on the conquest of America assumes its own contradiction, underlined by a montage of texts by colonisers: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Hans Staden, Jean de Léry, Charles de la Condamine and the use of costumes and masks inspired by Brazilian modernism. The discovery of a new world conducted in slow motion listening to the minutes of an unlikely trial of the invaders. The most restrained of movements, surplus, to make the most of rediscovering the New World. Gilles Grand, FID Marseille catalogue, 2012.

The Closet

A man spreads the rumor of his fake homosexuality with the aid of his neighbor, to prevent his imminent firing at his work.

Slalom

15 year-old Lyz, a high school student in the French Alps, has been accepted to a highly selective ski club whose aim is to train future professional athletes. Taking a chance on his new recruit, Fred, ex-champion turned coach, decides to make Lyz his shining star regardless of her lack of experience. Under his influence, Lyz will have to endure more than the physical and emotional pressure of the training. Will Lyz’s determination help her escape his grip?

Elisa

Marie has had a tough childhood ever since her mother Elisa committed suicide. She has spent most of her life in an orphanage and now makes a living as a small time criminal in Paris. Now she wants to unravel her past and find her father whom she blames for her mother's death.

Mike

Kembs. 4284 inhabitants. Mike, Fred and J-C, twenty years old, have grown up this Alsace village at the borders of Germany and Switzerland. There's not a lot to do here. The trio charges, head down, smiling admist general indifference. They keep themselves entertained with football matches, half-baked schemes cooked up in the back of the garage, and motorbike rides. But Mike has something a bit extra : for years now, he's nursed a genuine passion for cars and has the unfortunate habit of stealing them before innocently putting the back where he found them. It's his own very personal means of locomotion. More than anything else, he loves driving them and its behind the wheel of a Porsche that he seduces Sandy. He begins a genuine love affair with her. She seems like his best chance, the most luminous one. But Mike is at that uncertain age when choices and new rules impose themselves. Will he know to accept them ?

Penrose

On a film set, Kaja, a young actress, refuses to deliver her lines to her partner who is holding her at gunpoint. Like the character she is playing, Kaja is convinced that she will die at the end of the take. But Anna, the director, Marc, the producer, and Joseph, her partner, are determined to shoot the scene despite Kaja’s pleas.