Descent Into Hell

The plot in this story weaves around like a New Year's reveler at four in the morning, heading first in one direction and then in another, with the intention of going home if things would just stop moving. Bernard (Gerard Depardieu) is a doctor whose Hippocratic oath was a hypocritic failure -- the not-so-good doctor kills his wife because she is having an affair, and he kills her lover too. Then he joins the French Foreign Legion. On his way to the former French colonies in Africa, the plane he is in crashes, and Rossi, a "friend" on the plane with some overweight in carry-on money, shoots Bernard and takes off, leaving him for dead. He is nursed back to life and health by friendly villagers and just his luck, he not only manages to make his fortune in Africa, he also nabs a French passport from a dying man who will clearly not need it anymore unless the Pearly Gates have a French guard.

Documentary about the making of French director Claude Chabrol's first film Le Beau Serge in 1958.

Contre l'Oubli (Against Oblivion) is a compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.

The scene is the restless Paris of the interwar years where an attractive and ambitious woman successfully makes her way in a world previously reserved for men: that of high finance. Originating from a humble background, she quickly becomes popular with small savers by offering them outstanding interest rates. Extremely popular, she makes no secret of her taste for the good things in life and her homosexual affairs. They will cost her dearly...

Just before taking an irrevocable and tragic step, Caroline talks to Claire, her lycée friend. Later, Claire gathers five other school friends, and tells them Caroline's secret. The six agree to wage a guerrilla war against their philosophy teacher, the sarcastic and belittling M. Terrien, the cause of Caroline's despair. After seeking advice from Mayard, the school's guidance counselor and a leftist with a police record, the six look for evidence that could get Terrien fired. They strike gold, and then raise the stakes. Sarah, one of the six, hatches a deadly plan.

French drama starring Caroline Cellier, Claude Brasseur and Niels Arestrup

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou's convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch's bizarre miniature epic.

Claire's handbag is stolen. It contained a letter written ten years previously by the man who is now the French President. In the letter he urges his pregnant mistress to have an abortion. Claire immediately alerts the President's men. From that moment, the machinery of state swings into action.

On 9 January 1836, Pierre Lacenaire goes to the guillotine, a murderer and a thief. He gives Allard, a police inspector, his life story, written while awaiting execution. He also asks Allard to care for Hermine, a lass to whom he has been guardian for more than ten years. In flashbacks, from the prison as Lacenaire writes, from Allard's study as he and Hermine read, and from other readers' memory after the book is published, we see Lacenaire's childhood as he stands up to bullies, including priests, his youthful thieving, his first murder, his brief army career, his seduction of a princess, and his affair with Avril, a young man who dies beside him.