French

SYNOPSIS from amg
Running a mere two reels, Van Gogh was fledgling filmmaker Alain Resnais’ first effort in his documentary series about famous artists. Produced by Pierre Braunberger, who would underwrite most of Resnais’ classics of the 1950s and 1960s, the film won several international awards. Concentrating on Van Gogh’s paintings, Resnais charts the artist’s self-destructive streak and descent into madness — and at the same time celebrates his brilliance and “lust for life.” The narration was written by G. Diehl and R. Hessens. The music, which many reviewers felt was the film’s strongest asset, was by Jacques Besse.Read More »

In Montreal, the teenagers Manon, Anne, Isa, Claudie and Sophie are friends since their childhood. While spending a couple of days in the cottage of Sophie’s parents nearby a lake, the girls decide to give a party, and Manon and Sophie hitch for a ride to the town in a jeep to buy some beers and supplies and they invite the driver to the party. On the return, the same driver stops the car and later Sophie is found stabbed, raped and covered of blood. Fifteen years later, Manon sees the guy in a car-wash and she invites her former friends to return to the house nearby the lake, where wounds of their traumatic loss are disclosed.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘A bellman – that is, a man whose job it is to help lost travelers in the Alps find their way from the ringing of a bell – kills a traveler for his money and splits the proceeds with companion. However, complications follow…’
– Dave SindelarRead More »

Quote:
The hard life of a young man in the provinces of France in the ’60s when you want to seduce girls or even just have a talk with them.Read More »

In the nineteenth century, a young police captain, Langlois, is sent to a remote snow-covered village to investigate the disappearance of a girl. He is helped in his investigation by a local magistrate, who is convinced that the murderer is an ordinary man who has killed merely to relieve his boredom. When he finally confronts the killer, Langlois becomes aware of his own identity and discovers that he too has the impulse to take the lives of others…Read More »

Synopsis
The vibrancy of gypsy life has been brought to the fore on film by Tony Gatlif, himself of gypsy heritage. Galtif has covered much European territory with films such as his much-loved Gadjo Dilo (1997). Vengo tells a romantically tragic tale of vendetta and sacrifice for family, which is the closest to home of all; it tells of the Andalusian gypsies of southern Spain – Gatlif’s own background.Read More »

The gods have declared the drought of the country. There seems to be no hope. A holy man summoned by the king requires the sacrifice of a young woman to put an end to their anger. A young man in love decides to go in search of water to save the girl from a tragic end, but when he returns with good news it’s too late: the genie had his satisfaction and Toula has already disappeared in the holy swamp.Read More »

Paris. For some months now, a violent gang has been operating with complete disregard for the law.

Head of the Judicial Police, Robert MANCINI lays down a challenge to the two men who work directly beneath him, – the head of the Search and Action Squad, Leo VRINKS (Daniel AUTEUIL) and the head of the Anti-Crime Unit, Denis KLEIN (Gerard DEPARDIEU): Whichever man captures the gang will replace him as the head of the Criminal Investigations Department.Read More »

Mikhaël Hers has been one of France’s most hotly-tipped new directors ever since his medium-length ensemble pieces Charell, Primrose Hill and Montparnasse – films largely about young people walking and talking, but with a magical contemplative atmosphere all their own. Stretching out to full length, Memory Lane confirms Hers’s utterly distinctive signature. Very loosely resembling a slacker take on the Eric Rohmer tradition, Hers’s film follows the events – or spaces between events – of one summer in Paris and its outskirts, experienced by a group of young people and remembered melancholically at a couple of months’ distance.Read More »