France

A man takes his dog for an early morning walk around the streets and alleyways of a Parisian suburb. On returning home, he decides instead to continue to a secluded hill to sit with his dog and think.Read More »

Serge Pilardosse has just turned 60 and is about to retire from his job in a slaughterhouse. He has always worked from the age of sixteen, never been on sick leave. So, how will this man fill his days? He does not like reading; doing odd jobs about the house is not his cup of tea; shopping is not his passion … To make matters worse, his wife Catherine, who still works in a supermarket, notices that her husband will not get full retirement benefits since some of his former employers failed to do the requisite paperwork. So off goes Serge, riding his old Munch “Mammut” bike, in search of the missing documents … (IMDb)Read More »

Synopsis
Lily and Erich, telephone operators in Paris and Berlin, respectively, fall in love over the telephone wires and resolve to meet in Paris. Their simple plan is confounded by Erich’s unexpected travel delay and the subterfuge of their friends Annette and Max. Two cases of mistaken romantic identity result and play out against the streets, bistros and beds of Paris. True love triumphs in the end.Read More »

Synopsis:
Bertrand Beauvois, a well-known attorney, is in Monte Carlo to defend a businessman’s mother who murdered a gigolo with ties to gangsters. The businessman provides a bodyguard, Christophe, who is thorough and unsmiling. The middle-aged Beauvois is drawn to Audrey, in her 20s, free spirited, a local TV weather girl who once dated Christophe. Although Christophe warns Beauvois to stay away from Audrey, he’s hooked and spends every moment with her he’s not in court. What’s her angle: is she a plant who’ll ruin the case; is Beauvois her toy; is she digging for gold; or, is she genuine? Beauvois loves the wild sex but not her promiscuity. Has Christophe failed to protect him?Read More »

Quote:
Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, and director André Téchiné collaborate for the second time (following their outstanding My Favorite Season) in a powerful story about a Paris cop (Auteuil) who comes from a criminal family. When his father and brother are murdered, suspicion shifts to his lover (actress Laurence Côté), who then disappears. Auteuil’s character reluctantly teams up with her lesbian girlfriend (Catherine Deneuve) both to find her and clear her name. The gripping story is told in a nonlinear series of overlapping chapters taking place before, during, and after the killing. Time bends and shifts, forcing the action to ripple through an ever-widening pool of neuroses and tragedy. The best part of the film, however, is the always- mesmerizing cold-fusion chemistry between Deneuve and Auteuil, two great actors who never wear their hearts on their sleeves.Read More »

Quote:
Marcel Ophuls’ four-and-a-half hour portrait of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand under German occupation from 1940-44 is one of the greatest documentaries ever made, as important as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah in its value not just as a film but as an essential historical record in its own right – not least since its interviewees are all long dead.
Describing the fall of France and the rise of the Resistance, with the aid of newly-shot interviews and eye-opening archive footage including newsreels and propaganda films, Ophuls painstakingly crafts a complex, nuanced picture of what really happened in France over this period. He also demolishes numerous self-serving national myths to such an extent that, although he made the film for French television, they wouldn’t show it for over a decade.Read More »

Plot: Burkina Faso in 1987 is a country in the throes of revolution. Manu, an eight-year-old who loves comics, tags along with Albert, his big brother. When Albert decides to undergo a magic ritual to become invincible, Manu realizes there are real powers to rival those of his comic-book superheroes.Read More »

A journalist is sent by the Vatican to investigate a young girl claiming to be visited by the Virgin Mary.Read More »

ROAD TO LOVE explores the theme of homosexuality as it is manifested among Islamic/Arab men. This romantic story goes from Paris to Marseille, from Amsterdam to Morocco via Jean Genet’s grave in Larache, and on to Tangiers. The movie tells the story of an Algerian-French heterosexual young man beginning a sociology study of gay islamic homosexualities and discovering gay love with a young French man.Read More »