A number of strange characters come to Corecheux, in France: the Lalyre famille, an homossexual notary, a severe-looking governess, a female witch, a veterinarian, a journalist, and possibly the most chaste of them all, a few young girls ready to lift their skirts up at anything... A young priest takes over the mission to preach at this country estate village - but maybe he is too vigorous for the task.
Young sociologist Stanislas Previne is writing a thesis on criminal women, so he visits Camille Bliss in prison for an interview. Accused of murdering her husband and her lover, Camille recounts her life and love affairs.
A fairy godmother helps a princess disguise herself so she won't have to marry her father.
A stranger enters into and forever alters the life of a couple. He claims to be pursued by certain authorities who intend to prevent him from disclosing a secret that only he holds, whence the title. Is he lying, or insane - or is he telling the truth? Who, if anyone, is after him? And what *is* - the secret?
Old Léon lives an hour outside Paris, in the company of one of his daughters, his son-in-law and his granddaughter. The latter agrees to take him to see his paralyzed cousin Adolphe in a Paris hospice. He takes the opportunity to visit his first wife, trying to get news of his daughter Louise, who is dead but whom he prefers to believe is alive. What remains is the haunting memory of the daffodils he planted for her...
One of the last productions for Diagonale, before De sueur et de sang, the feature film with which Vecchiali would close the cycle of the French production company.
Marcel is his garage's handyman. With the smell of grease and petrol wafting through the air, alternating between night watchman, petrol pump attendant and confidant, he is visited every evening by the slightly lost night owls who pass by. They all confide in him about their daily troubles.
A young man falls in love with a beautiful woman being chased by sinister masked figures at night. He tries to track her down, and learns she's being held captive by his father and colleagues who believe she's a vampire.
Wisconsin farm girl Elizabeth Carlson leaves family and her English teacher lover behind and escapes to New York. There she soon makes a career for herself as a fashion model. During a vernissage she's approached by a mysterious man whose motives are unclear...
We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.
After his wife and daughter are raped and killed by a motorbike gang, a man sets out to take revenge.
Fred works for an insurance company as a computer engineer. He is bored with enduring the trials of his shrewish wife, so, after using actuarial tables to calculate the most common means of death, he cleverly prepares the family bathroom and brings about her demise. For a while he is content with his new freedom, but then he recognizes that a friend is in a similar situation.
A young, honeymooning couple stop for the night at an ancient castle. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is home to a horde of vampires who have their own plans for the couple.
A bumbling film crew attempts to make a porno movie.
This short film shows a young couple during a short period after the explosion of a nuclear bomb 120 km above Paris. The city appears unaffected, but the man begins to notice changes in the behavior of the people in general and in that of his girl friend in particular. Part of the Italian anthology film RoGoPaG (1962).
Tired of being a housewife, Annie wants to work. Between her professional life and her responsibilities as a parent, she can no longer cope. She decides to leave and starts writing a memoir of her life...
Two women work as entertainers and prostitutes to raise enough money for their dream home.
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.
The love affair involving the beautiful Simone and the younger Françoise, coming from a frustrated suicide attempt.
This is rural France. It's the summer of 1943, the weather is fine and sunny and life is sweet. On one of these beautiful days, Nanette, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl, meets a slightly injured young man near the farm she lives on. Her life is about to change forever.
Marc Elbichon, a novice private sleuth, is investigating a wave of assassinations bearing a particular characteristic: the perpetrator, dubbed the "telephone killer" always strangles his female victims with a telephone cord.
In the north of France, the life of a nice family of marginalized.
This film, set at the end of the 18th century, in a provincial and noble environment raises the question of humans forced to lead a meaningless life. The rich Transylvanian noble youth, Kálmán, absorbed the spirit of freedom and enlightened culture in Paris. Returning to his father's estate, he encounters a superstitious backwardness and an orgiastic storming of violence and instincts.
Pierrot, mechanic in Paris, falls madly for a female chemist his senior—who at first refuses him, only accepting love after being diagnosed with a deadly illness.
Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life.
Blanche is the young, pure, beautiful wife of the Master of the castle, in a secluded land. Every man is in love with her, including the King and his servant Bartolomeo, visiting the Master.
Episodes in the lives of two country girls at school in Paris and their opinions.
Simone, a leather-clad porn theater worker, spends her shifts bantering with her coworker and observing eccentric customers in the cinema’s lobby. Tonight, she clocks out and heads off to meet her girlfriend, a waitress at a lesbian club. Later, she’ll encounter a lonely man on the prowl.
Sylvain Berg, a "professional" unemployed who spends his time hiking and mountain climbing, and "model" bank employee Benoît Constant, who has just been fired and does not want his wife to find out, both find themselves in Françoise Duru's office at an employment agency. Françoise is secretly in love with Sylvain, so in order to keep him close she convinces her employer to give Sylvain a job he doesn't want, instead of Benoit who not only wants it but also has the right qualifications.
The fantasies and dreams of two over-the-hill actresses are intertwined with their realities, as the two roommates struggle to survive their day-to-day lives in the expensive and difficult world of Paris.
Ambitious Emma Eckhert successfully makes her way into a world previously reserved for men: that of high finance. She quickly becomes popular with small savers, but leads a scandalous life that will cost her.
A well-known politician receives a tape showing her son in a porno movie. She decides to hire a female detective to figure out who is trying to blackmail her.
The fortunes of a small theatrical company based in the Paris suburbs.
A man looks for a job, ignoring the selection process of employees. Part of "Contes modernes: A propos du travail."
A woman returns after twenty years to Toulon where her husband, who collaborated with the nazis, was murdered. Her motives are unclear.
Recall of the events which, from 1914, favored Philippe Pétain's access to power in France in 1940.
Lemmy Caution is on a mission to eliminate Professor Von Braun, the creator of a malevolent computer that rules the city of Alphaville. Befriended by the scientist’s daughter Natasha, Lemmy must unravel the mysteries of the strictly logical Alpha 60 and teach Natasha the meaning of the word “love.”
Alexandre, a young man from a wealthy family, suffers a serious fall. One leg is finally amputated, leaving the other paralyzed. Desperate, the boy tries to come to terms with his new existence. He quickly adopts a cruel attitude towards those closest to him, blackmailing the house gardener and his mother, who has a lover. Obsessed with sex, he is unable to have an affair with a girl and ends up committing suicide.
The struggle of Victor Schœlcher for the abolition of slavery in the French colonies.
Pierre is a middle-aged factory worker with plenty of unresolved anger. After his father's death, his mother feels compelled to move in with him. Having just moved there with his beautiful girlfriend, he begins to feel the pressure. When the May Day revolt begins, he goes crazy.
A small saver discovers the scam that threatens all subscribers to the "Caution foncière". He embarks on an incredible adventure to recover the funds paid in by his friends, and succeeds in exposing the scandal.
A tribute to Mallarmé that not only asserts the continuing relevance of his work but also confronts its literary ambiguities with political and cinematic ambiguities of its own. In outline, the film could not be more straightforward: it offers a recitation of one of Mallarmé’s most celebrated and complex poems (it was his last published work in his own lifetime, appearing in 1897, a year before his death) and proposes a cinematic equivalent for the author’s original experiment with typography and layout by assigning the words to nine different speakers, separating each speaker from the other as she or he speaks, and using slight pauses to correspond with white spaces on the original page.
While two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus, two solitary individuals wander the Parisian streets hustling the populace for cash.
A prisoner escapes and kidnaps a woman with her he falls in love. He's involved in a bad business where politicians and underworld are leading the dance. He'll die like the albatross in Baudelaire's poem.
A troubled marriage is tested by the couple's involvement in a theatrical production of Racine’s Andromaque.
Karl, a young immigrant, lives with his uncle in New York who jealously watches over the education of his nephew. A friend, Mr. Pallunder invites Karl to spend a night at his house. Despite strong opposition from his uncle, Karl agrees. On the way, Karl realises he may have displeased his guardian. His desire to turn back will be prevented.
This film explores the experiences of some of the members of an anti-Nazi resistance group in France composed mostly of Polish immigrants, known as "La Brigade." Many of them also fought for the leftist cause during the Spanish Civil War, and for them the resistance is simply a continuation of their prior activities. After the war, some of them continue to have a "resistance" mind-set. One of the stories concerns a love relationship between a Polish boy and a French girl who are thrown together because of their war efforts. After the war, they get together and reminisce.
Between 1931 and 1993, the main Renault plant occupied the whole of an island in a loop in the river Seine to the west of Paris. This was one of the most modern factories in Europe. It was also a bastion of trade-unionism, one of the major hotspots of the events of May and June 1968. Decugis’ film records a process of dismantlement, month-by-month, from April 2004 to March 2005. Demolition began at the downstream end, with the generating plant, then proceeded building by building. The camera remains on the opposite banks, filming the island from across the river. The narration pinpoints and expounds on what is being shown. By March 2005, ‘deconstruction’ is complete. Depollution lasts into 2006.
Pierre Lentier murders an 8-year-old in horrendous circumstances. This 30-something solitary factory worker who lives on the edge of society is sentenced to death. A damning indictment of the death penalty and the manipulative behaviour of the media.
Camille invites some soldiers to spend a Sunday in the country with her. When they arrive, they find that something is amiss.
In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.
Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.
Nine short films about love.
A young policeman searches for the murderers of his drug addict sister. While he carries out his investigations, the criminals manage to get him charged with murder.
French independent director Paul Vecchiali playfully bites the hand that periodically feeds him (and many of the nation's other creative filmmakers) in this dark comedy. Writer and director Vecchiali stars as a moviemaker named Paul Vecchiali, who is trying to complete his latest project, a dramatic love story about a young couple whose relationship is complicated by the man's addiction to drugs. Short on funds, Vecchiali approaches the National Cinema Center, who offer loans and grants to independent filmmakers whom they believe are deserving. The NCC is less than impressed with Vecchiali's latest script, and they turn him down, just as they have done a number of times in the past. Angry and determined that the NCC will never break the spirit of another director, Vecchiali and his crew block out a plan to assassinate the nine members of the funding board, though the press and public seem more bemused than outraged by the sudden rash of killings.
A lonely Chinese woman in Paris starts an affair with an womanizer musician.
Christian, an art critic, must write a study on the painter René Dimanche in order to understand why he did not produce anything for eight years. He asks his friend Ingrid to help him break through this mystery.
Ginette is at phone with the famous Rachah Rangers, who hosts a daily radio program. She talks about her break with Richard, her various relationship problems, her desires, fears and reproaches. Her friend, Simone Barbes, advised her to live, urgently, a new relationship ...
Croatian anarchists collaborate with Hungarians to make a bid for the life of King Alexander of Yugoslavia.
