The winner of the Miss World Virginity contest marries, escapes from her masochistic husband and ends up involved in a world of debauchery.
A two-part documentary made for French TV about Georges Perec, directed by his former partner Catherine Binet. It features a mixture of archival footage, scenes from Perec’s films and to-camera readings of excerpts from his work by various actors and friends of the author (Michael Lonsdale, Marina Vlady, Alain Cuny, Sami Frey, Edith Scob, Harry Mathews and others).
A young woman becomes entangled with a successful businessman, but her ex tries to win her back, provoking intense jealousy that leads her to reconsider her choice. Ultimately, one man's actions force a resolution to her dilemma.
It is 1654, in the South of France. When horsemen follow a runaway slave into the convent where he's taken sanctuary and kill both the fugitive and the Mother Superior, they little realise that one of the novices is the spirited daughter of retired musketeer D'Artagnan.
Nicolas Philibert goes to America after killing a French aristocrat. On his return he tries to divorce his wife, Charlotte, but when he sees others trying to woo her his own interest is rekindled.
Soon after her latest husband death, the King himself (Louis XIV) meets with our heroine and begs her to help convince the Persian Ambassador to agree to a treaty. However, what they didn't realize was that the handsome Persian was in fact a sexual sadist. So, it is up to the King's half- brother, some Hungarian prince, to save Angélique from the evil troll's clutches.
François, an ordinary Joe, falls hard for the sublimely beautiful woman who has just picked him up on the train and invited him to spend the weekend with her on the Riviera. But when the lady disappears the next morning and the police drag him in for questioning, François discovers he's been set up to pass for her notorious outlaw husband on the run, Anthony Zimmer. Even though he's been lied to and manipulated, François' life is changed forever and he's ready to give anything - maybe even his life - to hold this mysterious beauty in his arms again.
Franco Elica is a film director casting a remake of a pious melodrama in Rome. He's melancholy, heading south for a break. On a beach, he meets a man who films weddings and is roped into helping film the wedding of the daughter of a severe and imperious prince. The wedding is one of convenience - the prince needs money, the groom is a mama's boy. Elica is attracted to the bride, Boda, and tries to convince her not to marry. No matter how outrageous his behavior, the prince keeps Elica on as the wedding director. As the wedding approaches, what's real blurs with Elica's imagination. Is he mad?
Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.
An American Actress with a penchant for lying is forceably recruited by Mosad, the Israeli intelligence agency to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead brother.
As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a picture of the kind of relationship the two used to share.
Three years after simultaneously parting with a philanderer husband and experiencing a dramatic fall during a horse jumping contest, Alexandra Balzan, a Parisian architect, regains an appetite for life and love after a chance encounter with an aging misanthrope of a master horseman and his horse
A P.I. is obsessed with a cute woman, who seduces and kills rich men around W. Europe.
Every Saturday, to the great despair of his wife, Emmanuel finds his daughter Elise, fruit of a first union. A demanding and excessive father in his passions, he went to lay a loving trap for Elise.
A model tells a television crew about her dreams of a life with prince charming all while fending off the lecherous advances of a horde of men.
A compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
Les Acteurs is the absurd story of Jean-Pierre Marielle desperately waiting for a cup of hot water, the story of a conspiracy against actors, the story of aging actors whose careers are slowly less active than they used to be, but a stunning tribute to French actors and their cinema.
Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.
Barbara marries Julien a charming and sexy man. Barbara's old flame Paul is highly suspicious of Julien. It seems Julien's previous two wives died under dubious circumstances and he collected a wad of insurance money as a result. Paul cannot ignore his misgivings, and so he follows Barbara and Julien to Morocco on their honeymoon, intent on preventing any harm to the woman he still loves.
In a port area of France, clashes between a gang of young delinquents and a tribe of gypsies.
Thérèse is living in a provincial town, unhappily married to Bernard, a dull, pompous man whose only interest is preserving his family name and property. They live in an isolated country mansion surrounded by servants. Early in her marriage her only comforts are her fondness for Bernard's pine-tree forest, which was her primary reason for marrying him, and her love for her sister-in-law and Bernard's half-sister, Anne. The movie recounts in flashback the circumstances that led to her being charged with poisoning her husband.
A 35 ans, Sam est un casseur de coffres hors pair. Entre la garde de son petit garçon qu'il élève seul, son grand-père qui rêverait de le voir rejoindre l'entreprise familiale, sa petite amie qui se lasse de ses mensonges, il essaie désespérément de devenir un Mensch, un homme bien.
A subtitle warns, "beware of dark sunglasses." Anna and her lover, whose looks in bowler and bow tie are reminiscent of a young Buster Keaton, kiss chastely on a bridge overlooking the Seine. He dons sunglasses and waves as she runs down a stairway to the river's edge, then watches in horror as she's knocked flat and loaded into the back of a hearse. In vain, he gives chase. Disconsolate, he buys a large funeral wreath and a handkerchief from sympathetic vendors. He removes the glasses to wipe his eyes and realizes they are the cause of all his woe. He replays the farewell without the glasses.
Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument over a fly in the Sunday soup escalates into nuclear war. In "Sloth," a movie star would rather pay someone to tie his shoe than bend over to do it himself, and he can't be bothered to accept a starlet's sexual favors. In "Gluttony," a peasant family on its way to the funeral of a relative who died from indigestion stops regularly to eat and drink en route, arriving in time to eat some more. In "Greed," a high-class prostitute refunds the price of a cadet's lottery ticket. In "Pride," an unfaithful wife finds reason to reform. And so on through lust and envy.
A mysterious woman, dressed in black and carrying a small suitcase, arrives in Nice and tries in vain to get a job in a luxury goods shop. She ends up in a plush hotel where a solitary middle-aged man, engages her to be his companion. They introduce themselves - she is Charlotte, he is Paul. Both are reluctant to talk about their past; both need someone to make their present predicament more tolerable. Unbeknownst to either of them, Charlotte is being followed by another man, who seems intent on revenge...
A famous rock singer is being overtaken. Vox, the album and live producer of the singer, prepares a real revolution with the help of a scientist. With holography, they would like to create the perfect copy of the star.
Manon is an amoral, free spirit who uses sex to surround herself in relatively luxurious surroundings.
Lucia is a mature woman who maintains a relationship with the young John. When he is found murdered in a bullring with a nail stuck in his chest, Lucia is the prime suspect, it is believed that the motive for the crime was jealousy because it felt for her daughter Marta, which had also been seduced by John.
May, 1946, in Paris young poet Jacques Prevel meets Antonin Artaud, the actor, artist, and writer just released from a mental asylum. Over ten months, we follow the mad Artaud from his cruel coaching of an actress in his "theatre of cruelty" to his semi-friendship with Prevel who buys him drugs and hangs on his every word. Meanwhile, Prevel divides his time between Jany, his blond, young, drug-hazed mistress, and Rolande, his dark-haired, long-suffering wife, who has a child during this time. Cruelty, neglect, poverty, egoism, madness, and the pursuit of art mix on the Left Bank.
Tibere is a small-time hood who tries to get one of three airline hostesses to help him in his gold-smuggling operation in this light comedy. One woman is a snob, the second is adventurous, and Melanie is sentimental about love.
Karl, a young killer is to kill Kate, an adventurous lady living in a mansion by a lake. He approaches her but fails to kill her. Instead, he falls in love and becomes her lover ...
Ten years after their first meeting, John Marcher and May Bartram meet again in the magnificent Weatherend estate, but, as the first time, John's certainty of being doomed to a tragic fate hinders the feelings they have for each other.
Bullfighting, music, medicine, change, and homoerotic possibilities mix in this study of friendship. Francisco is a bullfighter on his way up, so focused even sex doesn't hold his interest. After a minor road accident, he meets a doctor, Manuel, who attends a bullfight, leaving early, retching. His wife, who is also his partner in a string quartet, worries about him: Manuel has a history of breakdown. Manuel, for his part, hates bullfighting and the memories it brings of Franco's Spain. His harsh views undermine Francisco's focus. He accompanies the young fighter to Spain for an important corrida. Will Francisco succeed? And what becomes of this friendship?
A woman leaves her lover to return to her husband who cheats on her, something that his pride can not admit.
This French tale, set in the 17th century, chronicles the marriage between an errant knight and a beautiful spinster. The tale begins in 1629, and the knight is Nathan Le Cerf who joins the regiments of Count Anchire after he loses his entire family to the plague. Nathan's first assignment is to kill the gambling rival of the count in a duel; Nathan obeys, but gets wounded in the process. Still he makes it back to his master and is expecting a generous reward. Instead, the count reviles the knight, invokes Louis XIII's ban on dueling, and orders Nathan beheaded. Nathan will have none of that. Despite his bleeding abdominal wound, he escapes into the countryside. Initially he finds shelter with his lifelong friend, a chalk maker; he then goes on to one of his patrons, an artist. Nathan is relegated to living in a humble hut in the wilds. Eventually he meets an impoverished noblewoman, Marhte de Lairac.
A televsion reporter tasked with making a feature about Jean Jacques Rousseau's upcoming 300th birthday uses a local Swiss boy with a remarkable knowledge about the philosopher as her angle for the feature. She then brings in a local professor and Rousseau expert to try to explain how this boy could possibly know so much about a philosopher who died over a hundred years before he was even born. What unfolds is a story about friendship, nature, and the unequal distribution of wealth.
In Genève, bookseller and publisher Axel Thorpe catches willful, rich 16-year-old Sibylle Ashby shoplifting. She brags about her writing, so he challenges her to produce a book. She writes an erotic novel that Thorpe publishes anonymously, and it becomes a best seller. She also tries to capture the love of this 40-year-old publisher but he drops her for her older sister.
Chick fell in love with Alise because of a shared passion for writer Jean-Sol Partre who gradually devoured their relationship. Soon after, Colin, the main character, also falls in love with a young girl, Chloe, but after their marriage she soon suffers from a strange illness: a water lily grows in her lungs.
Alexa, Fernand, and Louis form a tender yet unconventional trio in a quiet suburban home. Fleeing failed marriages and societal expectations, they build a life rooted in love and mutual support. But their unorthodox arrangement stirs suspicion, especially from a curious police inspector whose own life is about to change in unexpected ways.
The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin’s family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site’s empty halls and ballrooms.
The year is 1950 and an English couple, Louise and Michael, have arrived in French-occupied Indochina to cover a story on a French-owned rubber plantation. They are to be the guests of the enigmatic plantation overseer, Daniel, and his beautiful yet difficult daughter Viola, at their elegant, decaying villa amid a tropical jungle. Michael and Louise hope that some time spent working in an exotic location will help reignite the passion in their floundering marriage. Instead they become unwittingly involved in the personal, sexual and political tensions of their hosts. Daniel is desperate to hold onto a way of life no longer possible in a country struggling for independence, bringing him into conflict with not only his daughter but also with his adopted country.
Florence, early 1960s. Bruno aspires to be hired at a prestigious factory, but his Communist ideals — instilled by Millo, a father figure and family friend in love with Bruno's widowed mother Ivana — are an obstacle. His relationship with Lori, a beautiful and tormented young woman who has just returned from Milan, reshapes his convictions. Freely adapted from a minor novel by Vasco Pratolini.
A dying woman, who stole her best friend's lover, is convinced that a spell has been cast on her, so she orchestrates her former friend's return from a self-imposed exile in Africa in the hopes of breaking the spell.
Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, son and daughter of the Lord of Tourlaville, have loved each other tenderly since childhood. But as they grow up, their affection veers toward voracious passion.
Due to a garbage strike, inmates are called in to take care of the garbage collection. Taking advantage of this unexpected situation, three of them manage to elude their guards.
Young aristocrat Arnaud de Maule hires female private detective Claude Alphand to investigate a strange cult, the Church of the Final Revival, that tried to recruit his girlfriend Chloé, who then disappeared, and it now stalks him.
Zac is a well-respected French filmmaker who creates a major uproar when for no apparent reason he suddenly vanishes from his posh Parisian apartment leaving behind his lover Helene, a popular star. Marcus, his producer searches for eight months before locating Zac who has since become a homeless street bum in an expensive neighborhood. Marcus sends Zac to a posh hotel. He then sends Daisy, an ambitious secretary and aspiring screenwriter to learn what happened to the great director. It takes a lot of mutual verbal sparring and false turns (which are presented as creatively filmed vignettes that are done using a variety of techniques) from Zac before he finally tells her the truth. The two then decide to turn the story into a film. As they write, Daisy and Zac slowly fall in love. At the same time, Marcus has his hands full trying to avoid some tough Russian Mafiosos who want the money they invested back.
Alain is the only son of a wealthy bourgeois couple. He takes violin lessons in Ménilmontant, where he is spotted by Fleur, a poor girl: she is going to kidnap him and demand a ransom from the young man's parents, money which will be used to pay for a good lawyer for her brother accused of killing a policeman.
A young and hapless Antwerp thief, working for a gang led by leather-clad Philippe Clay, quarrels with his boss and kills him during a fight. Enlisting his sister's help, he tries to get rid of the body in the harbour, - attracting the attention of a night watchman who seeks to profit from the situation
"A man stands amid unpacked boxes in his new home, delivering an extended monologue on indecision and dislocation. This rarely seen, overlooked gem created by Akerman for television explores the quotidian crises and profound feelings of alienation that run through her work." - BAM
Extensive dialogue and the tight focus of a single apartment setting marks this romantic and politically symbolic drama about Malgorzata, a Polish photographer (Krystyna Janda) and her married French lover Paul (Sami Frey). The two rendezvous in West Berlin to spend some time together before Malgorzata has to go back to Warsaw and Paul returns to his wife and daughter.
Study of 1960s Milanese social life and its glamorous depravity, as seen through the story of the working class Mario who dreams of social climbing.
Francesco, a young Sicilian aristocrat, scars an aging gangster who has set out to take away his property. The gangster vows to obtain vengeance, and Francesco is forced to flee across Greece with his girl friend, pursued by his antagonist's vicious henchmen.
David learns that his mother has cancer and only two months to live. He decides not to let her know.
The whole film takes place in a single room where representatives of the two political forces and their enemy "the Jew" are gathered. A female character establishes the dialogue between these individuals and comments on the ideology of each; Until the final scene where everyone seems to rally to a common idea.
A brilliant and determined female engineer is approached by a network of powerful women with an offer to help become the head of a CAC 40 firm. The conguest, which was at first thrilling, turns to complete war with the men who still dominate.
The Inquisition is in full swing in 16th century Flanders. Wanted for his dissident writings, the alchemist doctor Zeno has been wandering Europe under an assumed name for twenty years. But he remains a non-conformist. He returns to his native Bruges, where he thinks he has been forgotten. In this silent labyrinth where the faces of the past resurface, he rediscovers his identity and thus signs his death warrant.
Away from home, away from her mother - that is 16-year-old Zoé's goal. She ends up on a small island with her older brother Theo and a 6-year-old neighbor boy. Zoé's world is fine here - until Theo falls in love with Sanja.
On a Mediterranean cruise, a young man hired as a tour guide is intrigued by the beauty of a female interpreter hiding behind her sunglasses. He makes advances to her by venturing into a series of strange stories.
Elio is a member of a group of youngsters, all from good families, who have fun spending their days taking on silly challenges and perpetrating illicit activities. Their actions escalate and lead them to commit a robbery. Unfortunately, the robbery ends badly and a death ensues, leaving the group implicated in a murder. The police are groping in the dark due to the complexity of the investigation. Meanwhile, Elio meets and falls in love with a nightclub stripper, Suzette. The rest of the group, after a while, think they've got away with it, but make a reckless mistake that allows the police to track them down and arrest them.
She is Florence Vannier-Buchet. Married to Protestant banker Jean-Marc Buchet. Florence leads a major sporting goods company with happiness and firmness. He is Antoine Lombard, Professor, son of a teacher, he is Secretary of State at the Universities. He divides his time between his ministerial activity and his riding in the working class suburb of Chartres. An elected member of the "pink wave". They met during a stormy assembly of the CNPF. The action takes place in 1983. Florence is engaged in a daring industrial and financial operation, while Antoine is putting the finishing touches to a bill for the renovation of Higher Education. Everything separates them and yet they do not manage to live separated from each other ...
A psychiatrist takes complete responsibility when his son is found floating in a swimming pool, stabbed to death. All the evidence points to a young orphan boy as the real murderer. Why is the psychiatrist claiming the murder as his own?
Mr. Freedom, a bellowing good-ol'-boy superhero decked out in copious football padding, jets to France to cut off a Commie invasion from Switzerland. A destructive, arrogant patriot in tight pants, Freedom joins forces with Marie Madeleine to combat lefty freethinkers, as well as the insidious evildoers Moujik Man and inflatable Red China Man, culminating in a star-spangled showdown.
Lola, a young lawyer, is raising her little boy Bolivar, and sustains his family. Diagnosed with cancer, she decides to fight against this disease as it has always done in life with strength, determination, and above all with humor. In his fight, it is supported by Ferdinand, his fiery lover and naive who is a journalist. In the hospital, treated by Prof. Tobman, deeply human doctor, she met a group of women, all living with the same bad but each following a different social environment. This group will become his new "family".
François, a Jewish lad, works for an insurance company and is engaged to a Jewish girl. His world is very ordered and secure and perhaps feels a bit claustrophobic. When he observes that a murderer has been declared psychologically incompetent and is to be placed in a mental institution, probably for the rest of his life, François feels the murder's plight very keenly. As time goes by, the murderer's situation is more and more unbearable to him, and he breaks off his engagement. Afterward, he has a liaison with a girl he has not known before, an act that somehow frees him. Now he wants to free the murderer somehow.
The name of painter Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) is synonymous for a kind of painting style which celebrates carefree romantic life, indoors and out. He was a painter during the final decades of the French monarchy. In this story, he and his brother Cyprien (Robin Renucci), who is an early pioneer in medical anatomy (he dissected corpses and made drawings of what he found in them), have fallen in love with the same woman, Marianne (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), a laundress. This attraction has not escaped the notice of Salmon d'Anglas (Sami Frey), a conniving nobleman, who has his heart set on getting revenge on Jean-Honore (Joachim de Almeida) for refusing his patronage and becoming the darling of the French court.
Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
Werner Schroeter directed this dark and surreal tale of a man determined to save a lost lover from a grim fate at the hands of a violent mob. The city of Santa Maria is falling into chaos as an armed military faction is poised to take power in a coup d'etat. Ossorio used to call Santa Maria home, and he has returned in its darkest hour to find the woman he loves, hoping to rescue her from the violence that is lurks around the corner. As Ossorio searches for his love, he meets Victoria in a shabby hotel, who in turn introduces him to her father Barcala, who for the right price is willing to take Ossorio and another passenger away on his boat. While Ossorio is willing to pay Barcala what he wants, can he find the mysterious woman before the ship sets sail?
Two friends, who go hunting meet a woman who questions their practice.
In 1880's Italy, young Paulina must join a monastery to escape a doomed relationship with a married count. However, neither she, nor the count can just move on and all elements for a tragedy are there.
The tale of two lovers spending time in Rome when, suddenly, in a restaurant, the man believes he recognizes the voice of a woman he once loved... remembrances and dreams of past love ensue.
Mathieu is collected from the hospital by his wife, and dropped of at an apartment. His wife returns home to their son. The next time she sees him, he confesses that he is in love with another woman. This woman, who is identical to his wife, visits him. After making love, she leaves. She then returns. Mathieu shoots her - or does he shoot a mirror?
A young man wakes up one day transformed into a giant insect.
Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era's progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.
The metamorphosis Of Brigitte Bardot from 50s to the 60s. Portrait of an Icon
The life and career of screen siren, Brigitte Bardot.
An intimate portrait of Brigitte Bardot, the great French actress of the 1960s and 1970s who worked with leading directors such as Henri-Georges Clouzot and Jean-Luc Godard. The artist shares her family archives with us.
Who hides behind Brigitte Bardot? Extraordinarily photogenic, a tumultuous love life, the ultimate sex symbol for the 1950s and 1960s, the actress, singer and animal rights activist left an indelible mark on her era. Despite over 30,000 photos published in the press, her true personality has long-remained in the shadows.
Filmmakers, writers, and photographers have dissected her from every angle. Because she is a myth, and always will be. we have examined the life of Brigitte Bardot through a dimension of her life that she displayed and championed: love. Because her frenetic quest for love reveals her, in the midst of her glory and her wounds, better than any linear biographical account. Her life—her childhood, her many lovers, the love-hate relationship the public felt for her, her ties to cinema—her entire life can be read through this prism. An exceptional 111-minute documentary about the woman who remains the unrivaled French star. The absolute icon who was one of the most loved, admired, criticized, and scrutinized women on the planet. And who, for twenty years, until she abandoned cinema to dedicate herself to animal rights, inspired a mixture of hatred and adoration.
Romy Schneider has been En Compétition ever since 1957 with Sissi, before coming back to the Croisette multiple times, notably for Claude Sautet’s Les Choses de la vie. This exceptional documentary recounts her illustrious career with passion and dedication.