Melvil Poupaud

The Broken

The life of a successful radiologist spirals out of control when she sees the spitting image of herself driving down a London street. While attempting to uncover who the imposter could be, she stumbles into a terrifying mystery that her family and closest friends are somehow involved in, leaving her with no one to trust.

Time to Leave

Romain, 31, a fashion photographer with terminal cancer, elects to die alone, preparing others to live past him rather than prolong the inevitable with chemotherapy or be smothered in sympathy by those who know him.

A Christmas Tale

When their regal matriarch falls ill, the troubled Vuillard family come together for a hesitant Christmastime reunion. Among them is rebellious ne'er-do-well Henri and the uptight Elizabeth. Together under the same roof for the first time in many years, their intricate, long denied resentments and yearnings emerge again.

Le Divorce

While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.

Broken English

Nora Wilder is freaking out. Everyone around her is either in a relationship, married, or has children. Nora is in her thirties, alone with job she's outgrown and a mother who constantly reminds her of it all. Not to mention her best friend Audrey's "perfect marriage". But after a series of disastrous dates, Nora unexpectedly meets Julien, a quirky Frenchman who opens her eyes to a lot more than love.

Lucky Luke

Fearless gunslinger, Lucky Luke, is ordered by the President to bring peace to Daisy Town.

Towards Zero

Inviting the ex-wife to a family reunion when the none-too-secure new wife will be there hardly seems to be a recipe for success, and true to form, bodies have begun to stack up by the end of this cinematic update of a classic Agatha Christie tale. Luckily for the extended clan gathered at a sumptuous waterfront estate in Northern France, Inspector Martin Bataille is on hand to find out not only "who done it" but why.

A Summer's Tale

Awaiting his girlfriend Léna’s arrival at the Breton seaside resort of Dinard, Gaspard befriends—and flirts heavily with—two other women, the companionable ethnology student Margot and the sensual townie Solène, making for a rather complicated situation when Léna finally arrives.

Crime Is Our Business

Loosely based on "4.50 from Paddington" by Agatha Christie.

Those Were the Days

The grueling, emotionally torturous world of French preparatory schools provides the framework for this mystery. The deliberately rigorous courses are designed to prepare students to take the brutal examinations for entry into the elite Grand Ecoles, where a select few will gain the skills and education needed to insure a bright, prosperous future for themselves. The story centers on Delphine, a girl from the lower classes, and the upper class Claude. Both young women aspire to attend the Ecole Normale Superieure on the Rue d'Ulm. Delphine lives in humble public housing with her dull mother and two young brothers while Claude, who considers herself a Communist, lives in luxury with her own servant; she is sexually involved with fellow- student, Axel, who thinks himself a fascist.

Feelings

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.

Black Heaven

An innocent young man becomes enamored with a mysterious girl. He is lured into "Black Hole" - a dark, obscure video game world of avatars with deadly serious intentions in the real world.

Normal People Are Nothing Exceptional

Martine is 25. Since breaking up with François, she has the feeling that the world is caving in on her. Between small jobs and one-night stands, she can't seem to get a fix on herself. In desperation, after a last quarrel with François, she unintentionally causes an accident that leads her to the emergency ward of a psychiatric hospital. During her brief stay, she unexpectedly sparks into life. She takes an interest in two young patients, Pierre and Anne, convinced that she is doing the right thing in supervising their love life...

A Hell of a Day

Some days turn out to be simply unforgettable. For Marie, it all starts with a pregnancy test… that proves positive, a car accident and being fired from her job... For Hortense, mobile phone in hand, the frantic quest for sexual satisfaction begins in a traffic jam... For both Luis and Maurice, the unexpected appearance of a loved one pitches them into a world of dreams and nightmares. While some of the characters know each other, others come into contact by chance. One woman profits from all this, the other is shattered. One will have gone looking for trouble, the other will have asked for nothing. There'll be no fatalities.

City of Pirates

A surreal odyssey in which a melancholic maidservant crosses paths with a homicidal little boy, travels to a tiny island of pirates and encounters a man with multiple personalities.

Eros Therapy

A husband wants to win back his wife, even though she has been living with her lesbian lover for six months.

Hideaway (Le refuge)

Mousse and Louis are young, beautiful, rich and in love. But drugs have invaded their lives. One day, they overdose and Louis dies. Mousse survives, but soon learns she's pregnant. Feeling lost, Mousse runs away to a house far from Paris. Several months later, Louis' brother joins her in her refuge.

Les Kidnappeurs

Ulysse, a gun-toting hood, gets together a team of four people, including himself, to carry out what he thinks will be a fail-safe heist...

Shimkent Hôtel

Shimkent hôtel tells the story of a young man who's experienced the failure of a business venture in the Afghan mountains, and who suffers from shock in Kazakhstan.

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.

The 15 Year Old Girl

Willy, a middle-aged divorcee, decides to take his 15 year-old son, Thomas, on holiday to Ibiza, staying at an isolated villa on the unspoilt part of the coast. Thomas insists on bringing his friend Juliette, a girl of his own age with whom he enjoys a close platonic relationship. When it comes to physical love, Juliette is wise beyond her years. She will only sleep with men older than herself and has no intention of committing herself to a long-term relationship.

Marcello Mio

Pressured from all sides by the figure of her father, Chiara Mastroianni decides to bring him back to life through her own self. She goes by the name of Marcello, dresses like him and asks to now be considered an actor, not an actress. The people around her believe this to be a temporary joke, but Chiara is determined not to give up her new identity…

Love Torn in a Dream

A serious young man of free spirit is forced by his surroundings to become rich at all costs. A group of blind children tries to open the eyes of the unbelievers to the Christian faith. Retired nuns who open a brothel, to pay the running costs of the convent. These rather ironic paradoxes turn this fairytale into a philosophical fable.

Laurence Anyways

The story of an impossible love between a woman named Fred and a transgender woman named Laurence who reveals her inner desire to become her true self.

The Dark Room

In 14th-century France, Aliénor breaks with the codes governing girls’ behavior and does as she wishes. The King of France grants her the hand of her childhood love, but her new husband deserts her immediately after the ceremony. Undeterred, she sets out after him, traveling to Siena to bring him back.

Diary of a Seducer

Student Claire lives with her mother, Anne, and Sebastien — a young man Claire brought home out of pity who is now trying to seduce them both. At school, Claire meets Gregoire, who loans her a book by philosopher Soren Kierkegaard that makes the reader attracted to whoever gave it to them. Smitten with Gregoire, Claire passes the book on to her therapist, who then falls in love with her.

Genealogies of a Crime

An attorney defends a young man on trial for killing his aunt — a psychiatrist who took him in to study possible homicidal tendencies.

The Counterfeiters

The plot revolves around Bernard – a schoolfriend of Olivier's who is preparing for his bac – discovering he is a bastard and taking this as a welcome pretext for running away from home. He spends a night in Olivier's bed (where Olivier describes a recent visit to a prostitute and how he did not find the experience very enjoyable). After Bernard steals the suitcase belonging to Edouard, Olivier's uncle, and the ensuing complications, he is made Edouard's secretary. Olivier is jealous and ends up in the hands of the cynical and downright diabolical Comte de Passavant, who travels with him to the Mediterranean.

The Edge

After studying in Paris, the young doctor François moves to Beauval, where single-family houses are lined up monotonously. He quickly becomes the focus of a group of young people, led by the charismatic Cédric and Matthieu, his assistant. The gang tries to escape their boredom with dangerous games at the edge of the forest. But things become bitterly serious when the body of a twelve-year-old girl is found and François is suspected.

Ballet aquatique

In one of his very last projects, Raul Ruiz celebrates the films of his historical predecessor Jean Painlevé, a documentary innovator whose work always blended science with surrealism. Ruiz and friends further perfect the art of mystification. Why it is so difficult to count fish in an aquarium? Ruiz, his loyal actor Melvil Poupaud and his producer François Margolin come up with a wide range of hypotheses. With their bone-dry wit, they keep up the tradition of the French pataphysics: the science of imaginary solutions. (IFFR)

Archipel

A teenager at a predominantly male boarding school learns lessons in love when he is invited to stay at a remote estate for the holiday season.

Just the Two of Us

When Blanche meets Grégoire, she thinks she has found the one. The ties that bind them grow quickly, and a passionate affair ensues. Together, they relocate. For Blanche, far from her family, from her twin sister, Rose, a new life begins. But little by little, she finds herself caught in the grip of a deeply possessive and dangerous man.

My Sole Desire

When aimless Manon begins work at À mon seul désir, a strip club that offers high concept performances, she instantly bonds with her fellow strippers, particularly Mia, an aspiring actress with a boyfriend and child. Manon learns that it is “not easy money, but fast money” and when she finds herself falling for Mia, she is forced to question her priorities as she explores her newfound erotic life.

Jeanne du Barry

The life of Jeanne Bécu, who was born as the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished seamstress in 1743 and went on to rise through the Court of Louis XV to become his last official mistress.

Fidelio, Alice's Odyssey

Thirty-year-old Alice's occupation is rather unusual for a woman: she works as an engineer on a freighter. She loves her job and does it competently but even in a greasy blue overall a woman will be a woman, with her heart, her desires and her seduction - In such conditions can an all-male crew really remain totally insensitive to her charms? A situation all the more complicated as not only does Alice leave her fiancé Felix behind but she also discovers on board the Fidélio that the captain is Gaël, her first love.

Duras and Cinema

Documentary on famous writer Marguerite Duras and her paradoxical relation to the seventh art by her former film editor.

44 Inch Chest

Colin is in agony, shattered by his wife’s infidelity, so his friends kidnap the wife's lover so he can have his revenge.

Lines of Wellington

Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal.

By the Sea

Set in France during the mid-1970s, Vanessa, a former dancer, and her husband Roland, an American writer, travel the country together. They seem to be growing apart, but when they linger in one quiet, seaside town they begin to draw close to some of its more vibrant inhabitants, such as a local bar/café-keeper and a hotel owner.

Coup de Chance

Fanny and Jean have everything of an ideal couple: fulfilled in their professional life, they live in a magnificent apartment in the beautiful districts of Paris and seem to be in love as on the first day. But when Fanny crosses, by chance, Alain, a former high school friend, she is immediately capsized. They see each other again very quickly and get closer and closer.

Heads or Fails

Armande Pigeon, a queen of shenanigans in Brussels struggles to make ends meet because she can’t stop gambling on everything, always ending up on the wrong side of luck. When she teams up with Ronnie one night, everything changes — they win it all. And when you hit a winning streak, you have to know when to stop.

Xavier Dolan: Bound to Impossible

Actors Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, Monia Chokri, Gaspard Ulliel, Vincent Cassel, Niels Schneider and Melvil Poupaud discuss working with the young Canadian director Xavier Dolan, who has conquered the hearts of both cinema lovers and prestigious festival juries with his films. To French actress Nathalie Baye, he seems very experienced despite his young age, while Cannes Director Thierry Frémaux says he may be insolent, but everyone agrees he is passionate, creative, a perfectionist and... in a hurry.

The Making of A Summer’s Tale

In 1995, producer Françoise Etchegaray recorded the production of A Summer's Tale. The footage remained on the shelf for years until director Jean-André Fieschi combined the images with bits of the finished film.

Stronger Than the Devil

Valentin, a man with a shady past but who is trying to turn over a new leaf, reunites with his estranged son Joseph and his son’s girlfriend Alice after years apart. But what seems at first like a heartwarming reunion, soon goes to hell as JP and Mila, nefarious acquaintances of Valentin, turn up with bloody plans.

Under the Stars

The first emotions in love with a young man of seventeen: Thomas who understands that his life belongs to him at last. Four young women contribute to his sentimental education.

The Orphan Plus Minus an Arm

Eléonore is a gorgeous twenty-year-old who has lost her parents and one of her arms in an accident. She lives in an orphanage in Burgandy.

Benjamin Biolay - Christmas Show

Musical Christmas Special hosted by Benjamin Biolay.

Mad Love

1959. Guilty of a double-murder, a man is beheaded. At the bottom of the basket that just welcomed it, the head of the dead man tells his story: everything was going so well! Admired priest, great lover - his earthly paradise seemed to have no end. Inspired by a scandal surrounding the Priest of Uruffe in the 1950s.

The Great Game

Pierre Blum, 40, is a writer who had his time of glory in the early 2000s. One evening, on a casino terrace, he meets Joseph Paskin. This mysterious man, charismatic and manipulative, is influential in the world of politics and persuades Pierre to take on a strange mission that takes him back to a past he’d prefer to forget, and puts his life in danger. In the middle of all this, Pierre falls in love with Laura, a young extreme-left activist. But in this world of subterfuge, who can really be trusted?

A Lost Man

Inspired by the photographic travels of Antione d'Agata, Danielle Arbid's worldly drama follows a French photographer who travels the globe to seek out the most extreme experiences imaginable. Thomas is a fearless shutterbug who's always willing to put his life on the line for the sake of a good shot. Upon falling under the spell of an enigmatic old man named Fouad Saleh, the photographer travels to the Far East in hopes of uncovering the secrets of the man who can no longer recall his own past. As the photographer soon finds out, it's often the most innocent endeavors that yield the most profound and transformative results.

Fado, Major and Minor

Pierre, a middle-aged tourist guide, is the victim of a sudden failure : he does not recognize anything about him any longer. He goes back home and in his apartment he finds a mysterious young man who tells him he is here to avenge a young woman who has taken her own life. What share of responsibility does Pierre hold in this situation?

Three Lives and Only One Death

Four intertwining stories of bizarre occurrences in Paris featuring a man who was stolen away by fairies, a professor who becomes a tramp, the lovers who inherit a chateau – and the last tale that connects all that has gone before.

In Bed with Victoria

Victoria is a thirty-something divorced lawyer who's struggling to raise her two daughters. She is canny and cynical but on the verge of an emotional breakdown. At a friend's wedding she reconnects with Vincent, an old friend, and Sam, an old client. Her life is about to take a new turn.

La Vie de Marianne

In the aristocratic society of the seventeenth century, the fate of Marianne child who survived the deadly attack on a convoy.

Il était une fois... « Grâce à Dieu »

Inspired by a case of pedophilia in the diocese of Lyon, "Grâce à Dieu" recounts the struggle of former victims to reveal a scandal suppressed by the Church. This documentary shows how director François Ozon constructed his film between documentary and fiction, and had to shoot it in secret. Melvil Poupaud and Swan Arlaud, who play two of the victims, are interviewed, as are the two founders of the association that led the fight: François Devaux and Alexandre Hezez. Jean-Marc Sauvé, author of a damning report on sexual abuse in the Church, underlines the impact of this film on the evolution of the law and the Church.

The Argument

A Frenchman stuck in New Orleans has just had a colossal argument. The mother of his infant child has left him wallet-less and with a wailing baby. He must get diapers for his son, but he does not speak English.

Bruce Springsteen – The America whisperer

The life of Bruce Springsteen has been told many times, from the angle of the adored rock star, American icon. After a career spanning fifty years, nearly 130 million albums sold, concerts lasting over three hours in sold-out stadiums, fans including Sean Penn, Bono, Sting, Prince and Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen is now, at 73, one of rock’n’roll’s major icons. The American weeklies Time Magazine and Newsweek made no mistake in featuring the singer on their front pages in 1975, prophesying his inevitable success. A multimillionaire singer, the “Boss” has always sung about the little people, the workers who get up early in the morning, the people left behind by the American dream. On stage and in song, he continues to embody the American working class from which he sprang, and for which he remains the unapologetic spokesman. As in a Frank Capra film, anyone can become a hero in a Bruce Springsteen song.

Time Regained

In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life.

Treasure Island

Jim is a small child who lives in an inn run by his parents. The arrival of a strange captain to the Island they live will trouble his existence and tip him into an universe of adventures.

The Insomniac on the Bridge

This quickly-filmed avant-garde farce by prolific director Raul Ruiz features an insomniac (Michel Lonsdale) whose main preoccupation is surreptitiously watching private matters -- he is a voyeur. He and an equally disreputable acquaintance rape a woman alongside the Seine, a crime made all the worse because she is pregnant. The rest of this slow-paced film deals with the consequences of that action.

Innocent Lies

In September 1938 a British detective comes to a small French coastal town in order to investigate the death of a colleague. Prime suspects are the members of English aristocratic family with plenty of skeletons in the closet. This is a loose adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel Towards Zero.

Souvenir

An elliptical, poetic film about an American woman sportswriter who wanders around Paris remembering traumatic experiences in her life.

The Lover

A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.

Shooting Stars

A mobster is determined to find the drugs his mistress stole from him before running off with a young hustler.

The Heart's Root

Set in the Lisbon during the festivities of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lovers and the old town. The story is about Cato, a nationalist politician who is charismatic and unscrupulous. He obsessively pursues Silvia, a mystical and mysterious young transvestite whom he meets at the festival. When Silvia runs into Vicente, a policeman who arrests transvestites and threatens them, Silvia must look towards blackmail to save herself. Compromising photos of Cato start to emerge among opposition parties and he must do all in his power to save his political career.

The Lady in the Portrait

An empress commissions a painting of herself from a French outsider in hopes of stirring her husband's interest in this lavish period piece. The Lady in the Portrait is a period yarn evoking the unique rapport between a French missionary and the Manchurian Empress whose portrait he's ordered to paint.

Dans un miroir

A man comes to visit an acquaintance who is supposed to be sick and talks to his sister while he is waiting.

Golden Youth

Paris, France, 1979. Rose, a rebellious orphaned teenager, and Michel, a young aspiring painter, enjoy their crazy love under the neon lights of the decadent nightclub Le Palace, where they establish an ambiguous relationship with Lucille and Hubert, two bohemian bourgeois who will change their lives.

Face Down

Samy is a Frenchman accused of smuggling counterfeit money from Bulgaria to France. To avoid jail, he becomes an informer for the French police, joining under cover a Bulgarian channel for human trafficking. Gradually, he falls in love with Elka, an underage gypsy prostitute. Torn by the pressure from all sides, he almost turns into an unscrupulous pimp. His feelings for the girl will help him keep the last thing he has – his dignity.

When Margaux Meets Margaux

20-year-old Margaux makes the acquaintance of 45-year-old Margaux: they have a lot in common – so much so that it turns out they are one and the same person, at two different ages and stages of their life…

By the Grace of God

Alexandre, a man in his 40s living in Lyon with his wife and children, discovers that the priest who abused him decades ago continues to work with children. He joins forces with others victims of the priest, to bring justice and “lift the burden of silence” about what they endured.

Silent Streams

Women and men are lost in their thoughts at random hours of the day and streets of the city. From this sudden intimacy, the murmurs of their little inner voice let us hear the anxieties of love.

Les Contes secrets ou les Rohmériens

Les Contes Secrets ou les Rohmériens features interviews with 16 actors who have appeared in Rohmer's films, and they talk on camera about his unusual working methods, his personality, and his spare but evocative signature style. Among the thespians who share their memories are Jean-Louis Trinitignant, Marie-Christine Barrault, Zouzou, Jean-Claude Brialy, Béatrice Romand, Françoise Fabian, and Andre Dussolier; the film also includes rare footage of Rohmer himself at work on the set of his 1978 effort Perceval.

An Officer and a Spy

In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil’s Island penal colony.

Speed Racer

Speed Racer is a young and brilliant racing driver. When corruption in the racing leagues costs his brother his life, Speed must team up with the police and the mysterious Racer X to bring an end to the corruption and criminal activities.

Qui es tu Johnny Mac?

Melvil Poupaud short film noir about an alcoholic detective and a killer.

Qui es tu Johnny Mac?

Melvil Poupaud short film noir about an alcoholic detective and a killer.

Ces jours où les remords vous font vraiment mal au cœur

Melvil Poupaud short in 5 chapters about different guys reading farewell letters.

Quelque chose

Melvil Poupaud short about one crying man and one man in good mood. A companion to his early short "Ces jours où les remords vous font vraiment mal au coeur"

Summer of 85

What do you dream of when you're 16-years-old and in a seaside resort in Normandy in the 1980s? A best friend? A lifelong teen pact? Scooting off on adventures on a boat or a motorbike? Living life at breakneck speed? No. You dream of death. Because you can't get a bigger kick than dying. And that's why you save it till the very end. The summer holidays are just beginning, and this story recounts how Alexis grew into himself.

15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour

Drinking, dancing and... killing me. It's the new life my neighbour Jose has decided to live. What better way to escape boredom than coming to kill me every thursday? His wife, Lucie, prefers to go to a shrink. To each their own therapy.

3 Jours...

An arrogant parisian guy is stuck in a small village for 3 days waitng his car being repaired.

Souvenirs and Evocations

A short program in which the participants describe how they fell in love with cinema.

One Fine Morning

With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.

The Young Lovers

Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.

Qui a tué Johnny Mac?

20 years later Melvil Poupaud returns to his short "Qui es-tu Johnny Mac?" and replay the story of an alcoholic detective and a killer.

Brother and Sister

Alice and Louis are brother and sister. She is an actress; he was a teacher and poet. For more than 20 years, Alice has hated her brother. In all this time they haven’t seen one another. The death of their parents brings the siblings face to face.

Pronobis

Philippe lives in his deceased parents' large flat. He hides a dark secret there, wich a girlfriend will soon discover...

Melvil

«Melvil» is the name of a character who manoeuvres between cinema and reality, searching for a family, a place to take over, a role to play.

The Hands of Orlac

Film based on the novel The Hands of Orlac.

Richard III

Richard of Gloucester uses murder and manipulation to claim England's throne.

Bavardages en sida mineur

A young woman's questions about her partner's possible infidelities and the risks of his "irresponsibility" in the face of prevention.

Violette

Violette Toussaint, a beloved cemetery caretaker, lives a peaceful life filled by conversations with quirky workers and the many visitors who share with her their stories of love, loss, and life. One day her life is thrown off course when a mysterious stranger shows up on her doorstep compelling her to confront her troubled past filled with hidden truths. Violette comes to understand that the truth behind long-buried mysteries in her past must be uncovered if she wants to take another chance on life and, against all odds, love.

Mysteries of Lisbon

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure.