France

Synopsis:
Étienne, a modest carpenter, believes he has found the perfect partner in Irène, a beautiful young woman who appears to be devoted to him. But Irène is not the simple housemaid she pretends to be. In truth, she is the wife of a wealthy man, living in a grand house where she plays hostess at her frequent soirées to the cream of Parisian society. Irène is content with her double life until the day she discovers she is pregnant with Étienne’s child. After the baby is born, Irène promises to marry Étienne, without telling him that she must first persuade her present husband to agree to a divorce. Étienne’s hopes for future happiness are dashed when the business he attempts to set up fails and his child falls dangerously ill. The final blow comes when he visits Irène at the house where she claims to work and discovers the truth that she has long concealed from him…
— James Travers .Read More »

Quote:
A young woman named Magdalena (Isabelle Huppert) retrieves a postcard that had been cast into the wind by her biological mother (Bulle Ogier) from a seaside town in Portugal and discovers that she has a twin sister named Maria. From this seemingly introspective opening premise on identity, connection, and history, Deux diverges into unexpectedly abstract, non-intersecting trajectories that involve a schoolgirl attraction with a fellow classmate, a mother’s wartime romance, a serial killer who leaves a tell-tale rose on the bodies of his victims, a lonely woman who adopts a fox as a household pet. Composed of asequential and dissociated vignettes, the film evokes the baroque tableaux of Sergei Paradjanov, the formalism of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and fractured surrealism of Luis Buñuel infused with quasi-religious iconography and Actionism of Otto Mühl (most notably, in the image of disemboweled figures such as ornamental cherubs).Read More »

Four Parisian women navigate the world of romance and daily life looking to fulfill their dreams but often find real-life to be inescapable.

Ginette, Rita, Jacqueline and Jane try to find fulfillment and love in their lives. Rita has a fiancé whose family is obsessed with social distinction; Jane has a boy-friend in the army, but does not hesitate to enjoy herself with chance encounters; Ginette has a mysterious passion that keeps her away from her colleagues at nights. Jacqueline is lonely; but who is that mysterious bike-rider who is constantly following her?Read More »

In 2012, the head union representative of a French multinational nuclear powerhouse becomes a whistle-blower, denouncing top-secret deals that shake the French nuclear sector. Alone against the world, Maureen Kearney fights government ministers and industry leaders to bring the scandal to light and defend more than 50,000 jobs.Read More »

The film discusses how to save a marriage when one is surrounded by heterosexual as well as homosexual people.

Adrien is a successful businessman but gay. To help clinch a deal with an ultra-straight banker, Alexandre, Adrien persuades his close friend, Eva, who runs a gay bistro, to pose as his wife at a dinner party. Alexandre is intrigued by Eva and pursues her on her home ground, leading others – including his wife – to think he must be secretly gay. Adrien meanwhile becomes jealous of Alexandre’s interest in Eva and does his best to prevent their nascent affair.Read More »

In CÉCILE IS DEAD! (1944) Santa Relli (Jour de Fête) plays a young woman named Cécile, who keeps coming to Quai des Orfèvres to see Inspector Maigret about disturbing events in her household. The esteemed detective and his colleagues are annoyed…until Cécile winds up dead. Maigret must crack the mystery in this stylish film noir from director Maurice Tourneur (Lorna Doone).Read More »

Two young women and close friends play a game of “Would you rather” while taking a walk in Paris

The late Sophie Fillières’s first short film.Read More »

Quote:
After returning to Los Angeles from France in 1979, Agnès Varda created this kaleidoscopic documentary about the striking murals that decorate the city. Bursting with color and vitality, Mur Murs is as much an invigorating study of community and diversity as it is an essential catalog of unusual public art.Read More »

Paul Château-Têtard, 48, falls in love with a young woman working as a counter clerk in the subway. After he marries her, his mother launches a private detective on her tracks to prove she’s cheating on her son.Read More »