France

An imageless film, The Anticoncept was first screened on 11 February 1952 at the cinema club “Avant-Garde 52,” where it was projected upon a large white weather balloon.
It consisted of blank illumination accompanied by a staccato spoken soundtrack. The film was banned by the French censors on 2 April 1952—when the Lettrists visited the Cannes Film Festival the following month, they were forced to restrict the audience to journalists only. The text of the soundtrack was published in the sole issue of the Lettrist journal Ion (1952; reprinted Jean-Paul Rocher, 1999)Read More »

In L’Autre Scène, the images and the sound material try to manifest the mechanism of an advertisement around the blade.Read More »

One day, Hélène goes to the home of Charles Piétri, a man she once loved and has not seen for twenty years. She meets Julien, Charles’ son, who tells her that his father has died. Shortly afterwards, she breaks off her marital ties with Alexandre, and her professional ties with Georges Birski (who has just commissioned her to restore a painting), to live with Julien and to devote herself totally to him. In the house where Charles used to live and where Irene, Julien’s mother, is about to move in, Hélène discovers disturbing signs, clues and even evidence of a disturbing link that would unite them and that will push her to commit a senseless act…Read More »

Lawrence Garcia, Cinemascope wrote:
In the seven years since P’tit Quinquin, it has become impossible to continue tagging Bruno Dumont with the longstanding clichés of Bresson criticism. Epithets like “ascetic,” “severe,” “punishing”—already limited descriptors of his first two works, La vie de Jésus (1997) and L’humanité (1999)—have only become more obviously incapable of describing Dumont’s recent films, from the carnivalesque contortions of Ma Loute (2016) to the musical extremes of his Jeanne d’Arc movies. Still, as Dumont’s methods (particularly his increasingly frequent use of professionals alongside non-actors) have ostensibly moved away from those of Bresson, the deeper affinities between the two filmmakers have only become clearer. Read More »

In May 1978, the mining town of Kolwezi in Katanga, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Belgian Congo) is under attack from a group of communist guerillas coming from nearby Angola. The Europeans who work for the Belgian mining company and the Blacks who live in the town are taken as hostages by the invaders, who start a blood bath, shooting Europeans as well as Africans. Many of the Europeans being French, the French decide to organize a counter-attack, and to send a Regiment of Paratroopers from the Foreign Legion. The movie follows the stories of Delbart, a former non-commissioned officer, who was about to go back to France with his African wife and his child, Damrémont, who was Delbart’s replacement, Bia, a Zairian doctor, and Annie, an American married to a Belgian engineer as well as Non com Legion officer Federico and the French Ambassador and the Military Attaché.Read More »

Parallel lives of two couples destined to suicide, one, and unhappiness, the other.Read More »

The new teacher at a severely administered boys’ boarding school works to positively effect the students’ lives through music.Read More »

He was the first (blond) fallen angel of rock. By disappearing at the age of 27, drowned in his swimming pool on July 3, 1969, Brian Jones inaugurated the macabre list of rock’s shooting stars: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, all decimated at the same age by a too toxic lifestyle. Mounted very early in London, one of the first “slide guitar” players recruits beginners named Mick Jagger, Keith Richards or Charlie Watts, chooses the name “Rolling Stones”, defines the garage sound and blues, and inspires the bad boy side of the band. But endowed with a shy, insecure temperament, Brian Jones is gradually crushed by the creative power of the Jagger/Richards duo.Read More »

Quote:
French director Jean Delannoy has made 40 feature films in his long as well as illustrious career. He is best known for his film “La Symphonie Pastorale” based on the book by famous French writer André Gide. However,”The little rebels” is one of his important films which deserves a wider audience.

This film is about some juvenile delinquents whose boring lives change for good when they come into contact with a kind yet practical judge. Superstar of French cinema, Jean Gabin plays the judge’s role with firm conviction.Read More »