French

Writer-director Jean-Claude Biette’s 1982 French comedy drama Loin de Manhattan is intriguing and densely scripted, with playful performances and teasing results. It stars Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Sonia Saviange, Howard Vernon, and Laura Betti. In Biette’s complex screenplay, Christian (Jean-Christophe Bouvet), the employee of a Paris art gallery, gets the help of his friend Ingrid (Sonia Saviange) to try to solve the mystery of why famous painter René Dimanche (Howard Vernon) did not produce a single painting in eight years.Read More »

A young boy begins to experience the adult world as he enters adolescence.

A daring, exquisite study of agitated child psychology that marks Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage as a name to watch.

Fevered imagination and nightmarish reality brush shoulders to disconcerting effect in “The Demons,” Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage’s extraordinary examination of childhood fears festering in broad suburban daylight. Putting his documentary training to disciplined use as he teases out the largely internalized insecurities — sexual, social and practical — of his 10-year-old protagonist.Read More »

Ivo van Hove’s first staging with the Troupe marks the entry into the repertoire of the scenario of The Damned. In two decades, the artistic director of the Toneelgroep in Amsterdam, whose field of exploration encompasses the world of theatre, film and opera, has explored a vast repertoire of works, from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Molière, Koltès, Cassavetes or Arthur Miller. The intention in this production is not to adapt the cult film, directed byVisconti, but “to return to the screenplay in order to stage it for theatre”. What Ivo van Hove retains from this sharply drawn chronicle of a family of industrialists during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 in Germany is the ideological depravity of a company willing to makes the most poisonous alliances to benefit its own economic interests. “In my view, it is the celebration of evil”, says the director, whose work “always combines strong theatricality with the exploration of complex psychological zones and refined emotions”. Read More »

Quote:
5 Radio show (France Culture) discusses the history of French cinema over a century (1895-1995):

DETAIL OF EMISSIONS: Track Listing
———————-
1st Issue: Period 1895 to 1928 (1:55).
2nd Issue: Period 1929 to 1939 (1:51).
3 rd Issue: Period 1940 to 1957 (1:55).
4 th Issue: Period 1957 to 1973 (1:54).
5 th Issue: Period 1974 to 1995 (1:54).Read More »

In the colorful forest village of Amanha Lundju, tradition demands that when a child is born a tree be planted. As the tree grows, it becomes the twin of the growing human being. At the same time, trees are constantly being felled for firewood and buildings, and the threat of organized deforestation by the state hovers ominously.Read More »

Synopsis:
A fast-paced comedy about a young Belgian car nut and hairdresser’s apprentice, his girlfriend, and their legal and illegal attempts to get a Porsche under him for his nearing debut race. — IMDb.Read More »

Alice, fleeing her boring boyfriend, arrives at a mysterious house which turns out very difficult to leave. A dreamlike cross between Alice in Wonderland and a Borges story – a veritable garden of forking paths. Quite unusual for Chabrol and little known today, but deserving a re-discovery.Read More »

Description: In 1989 Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet realized a film project that was commissioned by Virginie Herbin, director of the audiovisual department of the Musée d’Orsay. The film is based on Joachim Gasquet’s recollected and imagined dialogs with Cézanne, Ce qui m’a dit…(1921).

A montage comprising paintings by the artist, footage shot at the foot of Mont Sainte-Victoire and film scenes from both Jean Renoir’s Madame Bovary and the Straub’s The Death of Empedocles. The film is an homage to light, color, painting, nature, cinema and the terrible and glorious world of reality.Read More »

Monique Mélinand portrays a woman in the late stages of terminal illness. Her son Philippe (Philippe Léotard), Philippe’s wife Nathalie (Nathalie Baye), and her husband Roger (Hubert Deschamps) attempt to comfort her as she navigates through her ordeal. However, those two closest men in her personal life begin to get more involved in their relationships with multiple mistresses. Her husband flirts with customers in their clothing and haberdashery store while her son flirts with her nurses. The film incorporates elements of Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte to poetic effect, relating to these scenes. In the end scenes, she goes through several final, deeply emotional moments as the disease claims her life. (Wikipedia)Read More »