French

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Gandahar is a utopian world of rare beauty and tranquility, the result of extensive mutation and genetic experimentation. But the perfect peace is shattered when a mysterious evil force invades this idyllic serenity, turning people into stone with petrifying rays. The Council of Women hold court and decide to send Sylvain, son of Queen Ambisextra, on a mission to destroy the enemy. Together with the beautiful and adventurous Arielle, the enemy that Sylvain eventually discovers very far from his home is the ultimate failure of Gandaharian scientific experimentation.Read More »

The story of a man lost in a labyrinth.

Six months before his death, Kafka wrote “The Burrow”. In this short story, a half-human, half-animal narrator describes the labyrinth he has built for himself to live apart from the world. He multiplies the strategies to protect himself from an invisible enemy who is perhaps only himself. Or death approaching in the darkness of a neighbouring gallery. The film “Axolotl” is a variation on this theme. The main character accepts a job as a janitor in an old building. He discovers a network of galleries that allow him to observe the tenants. But is it really the tenants that he observes in this way?Read More »

Synopsis : 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, magnificient lover, his earthly paradise seemed to have no end.Read More »

Summary from the Rotterdam Film Festival:
Ali is the image of modern Africa. He happily returns from a football match on his motorbike but a nasty surprise is waiting for him at his parents’ home: he finds Haoua, his bride-to-be, waiting for him. The wedding is celebrated shortly afterwards and the two begin living together under the same roof. They are strangers but cannot stand each other. Haoua is the classic traditional woman who has just arrived from the village, God-fearing and faithful to the laws of tradition. Ali’s friends advise him to look for a second wife. He meets Henriette, an uninhibited and provocative city girl, the woman of his dreams. To meet Henriette’s constant requests, Ali ‘borrows’ some money from the coffers of commander Soleymane, but he is discovered and ends up in prison. Henriette is furious and leaves him, whilst Haoua cries for him in despair.Read More »

Summary from the IFFR website:
This Djerma legend concerns a cruel king who cunningly puts the wife of one of his subjects to the test. Her humble fisherman spouse is sent away with a ruse and given a ring, to return in a year’s time. Can the wife be faithful and the husband return the ring?Read More »

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We manage as best we can when begging in Paris. For lack of a metro, the air vents are often welcome, even when the Salvation Army barge is closed. Doing the garbage in the morning, before the collection trucks pass by, or playing the sandwich man for a drink, a tuxedo rental, allow us to earn some money…Read More »

Archipel des amours is a collection of nine short films by Paul Vecchiali and eight other filmmakers associated with his company Diagonale. Each of the films in this collection presents an intimate situation complicated by the kinks and jinxes that prevent or forestall the consummations and satisfactions of love. The segments’ would-be lovers are thereby isolated from one another as if each were an island unto her- or himself. In the anthology form, the films are sometimes connected by brief shots of a shore of an unknown insular coast and/or the sounds of waves lapping again the piers.Read More »

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In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology—maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece Le samouraï defines cool.Read More »

Nouveau riche

In spite of a very poor rating, this film is really a killer! By far Jean Dreville’s most important film as well as one of the best Charles Vanel’s performances. First intended for Raimu, it seems that Vanel was finally a better choice and anyway if you give this movie a chance, he’s gonna blow your mind. Lord! What an actor!Read More »