Don't Make Trouble!
Twelve short stories about racism in every day life
François Dupeyron
Vincent Lindon
Philippe Lioret
Catherine Corsini
Xavier Durringer
Yves Angelo
Paul Boujenah
Yamina Benguigui
Emilie Deleuze
Fanta Régina Nacro
Christophe Otzenberger
Jean-Pierre Lemouland
Philippe Jullien
Also Directed by François Dupeyron
Monsieur Ibrahim is a story about a young Jewish boy in Paris who meets an old Muslim Turkish grocery store owner. The film touches the themes of friendship and love as the old man is a father figure to the boy as he teaches him of the Koran. The film is based on a book of the popular book by the French author Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.
France is a haughty, bourgeoise wife who is abandoned at the side of the road by her husband after a vicious quarrel. She meets Charles, a doctor. The meeting of the two strangers is the focus of the film, along with their encounters with characters at a truck stop.
Lisa drives Marie home but Marie doesn't want to end the night. Lisa suggests they go for a drive. Lisa tries to keep her distance from Marie, because she has a secret. However, Marie wants to be close to Lisa.
In this drama, three generations of the same family work together on a farm in rural France. Elderly Noel takes pride in having worked this land nearly all his life. His son Marc now carries most of the responsibilities of the farm (as well as the debts), and he's starting to buckle under the strain. And Marc's son Nicolas hasn't decided what to do with his life; he has little interest in farming, but he isn't sure where his real talents lie. One day, after helping his cows give birth to new calves, Marc gets word that he must destroy all his cattle to prevent the spread of Mad Cow Disease. This proves the last straw for Marc, and he commits suicide. Noel doesn't handle his son's death well and ends up in a retirement home, while Marc's wife gets a job as a cashier and Nicolas looks for work (with little success) while searching for a beautiful and mysterious woman to whom he gave a ride.
Besieged matriarch Sonia tries to make certain her daughter's nuptials come off flawlessly even as events spiral out of control is in this dark comedy helmed by François Dupeyron. With Sonia's wayward eldest son under arrest on drug charges, she then discovers that her no-account hubby has gambled away the money set aside for the reception. Will Sonia and her family triumph or crumble in the face of adversity?
When Frédi loses his mother, he realizes she has passed her healing gift on to him. Frédi rejects it totally, tangled up in his own unhappiness, until a fatal accident changes everything. He is forced to acknowledge that he had healing hands.
Mado is followed in the street by an unknown man. He offers her to go the hotel. She accepts, they sleep together and then split. Mado does not want to see him again, because she is married with Jean, and has a teenager son, Stephane. But Yves gave her his phone number. One day, Mado calls him.... An unusual love story.
No overview found.
The first days of WWI. Adrien, a young and handsome lieutenant, is wounded by a piece of shrapnel. He will spend the entire wartime at the Val-de-Grâce Hospital, in Paris. Five long years, and his life will change forever...
Also Directed by Philippe Lioret
Claire is a young woman who leads a somewhat formatted life. Pierre is an improviser, but not an actor. Brief encounter, brief romance, doomed or not, who can say? When things like that happen, you act on the spur of the moment.
Matthieu, a 33 year old Parisian who finds out that the father he never knew has died and decides to go to his funeral in order to meet his two siblings in Quebec. But once in Montréal, he realizes that nobody is aware of his existence or even interested in it. He is alone, in hostile territory…Filled with secrets, this story about one man’s coming to term with the foreign family he never knew he had is complex with interconnected themes such as masculinity, family, paternity and filial devotion coiling in the layers underneath.
His estranged wife is worth millions, but poor Paris resident Richard is homeless and jobless. He applied for unemployment benefits and now faces charges of fraud. To save himself from nine months in jail he must find his wife and force her to tell the courts the truth, that though she has married a politically-ambitious American governor and is filing U.S. tax returns, she is technically still married to Richard. But as she lives in America, how can he get to her? Opportunity knocks when Richard learns that she and her husband will be attending an international conference at an exclusive Paris hotel. To get in he will need a disguise.
Nora and Leo, 16, live in the same town, in the same suburbs, go to the same highschool, but everything opposes them: their social backgrounds, their families religions, their everyday lives. Yet, they fall in love at first sight. But from a theft accusation bringing into conflict their respective families, their love story will have to face a series of trials and dramas.
Bilal is 17 years old, a Kurdish boy from Iraq. He sets off on an adventure-filled journey across Europe. He wants to get to England to see his love who lives there. Bilal finally reaches Calais, but how do you cover 32 kilometers of the English Channel when you can't swim? The boy soon discovers that his trip won't be as easy as he imagined... The community of struggling illegal aliens in Calais
Claire and Stéphane are two Lyon-based judges who could hardly be more different. She is young and enthusiastic, committed to helping those unfortunates who find themselves in debt. He is older, wiser, but disillusioned with his work and his life. Under Claire’s influence, Stéphane discovers a new lease of life and at last finds a cause that is worth fighting for...
A 19-year-old searches for her twin brother after he runs away from home, following a fight with their father.
A traveller who has lost his passport in a Paris airport while between flights is restricted to a special transit zone. There he finds a group of similarly lost people hiding out and living from hand-to-mouth, reliant on their ingenuity to survive.
Colin returns to Brest to discover that the petty theft he committed five years previously allowed his opportunistic parents to place his grandmother, Manou, in a home to die and lay their hands on her fortune. Now he is going to have to look the old lady in the eye. Before that, he spends Christmas with his parents and announces that he has written a novel that is soon to be published: an autobiographical work of fiction about them and their schemes…
Camille arrives in Ouessant, the island of her birth off the Brittany coast, to sell the family home. She spends a last night in the house during which she discovers a secret. In 1963 a man came to work with her father, who was the Jument lighthouse operator. He only stayed two months, but his presence proved to be a disturbing catalyst.
Also Directed by Catherine Corsini
Al, a young man from a modest background is about to marry his boss’ daughter, along with succeeding him as the head of a car dealership. One night, while coming back from his bachelor party, he is guilty of a hit-and-run accident, urged by his two childhood friends present in the car. The next day, gnawed with guilt, Al decides to inquire about his victim. What he does not know is that Juliette, a young woman, has witnessed the entire accident from her balcony.
Helene loves to play poker for big money in men's company. But one day she looses big time against bar manager Antonio. He grants her 24 hours to come up with the 50,000 Francs. She asks all of her friends, but nobody will help her. When she finally steals the money from her brother Stephane, she gets them into serious trouble -- she didn't know where he got it.
In this French coming-of-age drama a 15-year old boy breaks free from his fixation with his older half-sister and learns to trust himself and become independent. The story is set in a rural French town. When his wild half-sister Vivien finally returns home after an eight year absence, young Marc is ecstatic. He is awed by her free-wheeling, independent life. He quietly follows her every move, living vicariously through her. She becomes his teacher, but as Marc observes her more closely he begins to see that his sister has no real sense of self-worth. Her promiscuity is only a mask to hide her lack of self-respect. Marc begins to withdraw and follow his own path.
Camille is an emancipated 30-something woman who has no desire to settle down and have a family, preferring to coast along on a succession of ephemeral relationships and one-night stands. However, her lifestyle fails to satisfy her fully, and in a moment of depression she runs into a complete stranger, Alexis, whom she instantly falls in love with. Alexis, alas, is married, with two children, and works for the Socialist Party. None of this is going to deter Camille though…
Renée is Laurence's grandmother and she intends to show her how to make rich men fall in love with her, in order to get their life insurance's money. Both women will meet several men in the course of the movie. Even the cynical Renée will fall deeply in love again. But even after getting married, Laurence and Renée don't seem to be able to love their husband for a long time. Will they manage to get rid of their rich, loving but irritating husbands? Will their husbands survive the experience? Or will true love triumph at the end?
This French-Belgian drama, based on a novel by Odon von Horvath, is set in 1938 in a German city along the banks of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. It attempts to provide insight as to why certain German youths were so easily lead into becoming Nazis by using two narrators, one a teacher who challenged the movement and another by a student who embraced it. Pabst teaches a group of teenage boys, all of whom seem to be young Nazis. The trouble begins when Pabst and a WW I vet are assigned to take the class to a military camp and a nature outing for urban kids. While there a boy is brutally murdered and they blame one local girl. During her trial, Pabst speaks out against Hitler and becomes pariah. Still he continues investigating the death, at great personal expense until at last he brings the real killer to justice.
On the one hand you have Judith Zahn, an arrogant, snobbish, bitchy Parisian editor. On the other hand meet Julien Demarsay: an insecure, timid, young bookseller from the East of France who has just written his first autobiographic novel, with what it takes of navel-contemplating and soul-searching. What do they have in common? Nothing much, except that sex will unite them, ambition part them before true love is born between them at last.
Kheìdidja, in her forties, works for a wealthy Parisian family who offers her the opportunity to take care of their children for a summer in Corsica. It's an opportunity for her to return with her daughters, Jessica and Farah, to the island they left fifteen years earlier in tragic circumstances.
Suzanne is a well to do married woman and mother in the south of France. Her idle bourgeois lifestyle gets her down and she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist. Her husband agrees to fix up a consulting room for her in their backyard. When Suzanne and the man hired to do the building meet, the mutual attraction is sudden and violent. Suzanne decides to give up everything and live this all engulfing passion to the fullest.
Spans the period from 1958 to the present day and tells the story of an unconditional love between a mother and her daughter which is endangered by an unsteady and manipulative father.
Also Directed by Xavier Durringer
A French women lives her worst nightmare when she discovers that her daughter has been radicalised, and plans to leave for her "husband" in Syria.
Clara (Karin Viard) is a stripper with a high-strung, jealous boyfriend with the curious name of Loockeed (Antoine Chappey). The couple are friends with the even-temperred, almost saintly Max (Gerald Laroche), an auto mechanic. The three of them set out from their home in the north to journey to the Alpine mountains near Switzerland and Italy, where they will help a fourth friend take care of his pleasure boat business at Lake Annecy while he is in military service. As the trio attempt to establish some sort of equilibrium in their new lives, Max must constantly deal with Loockeed's testy, jealous barbs. Despite this, the three of them remain friends.
A look at French president Nicolas Sarkozy's rise to power.
A team of former robbers arrived at Paradise: Phuket, southern Thailand. Now traders, they are happy days. Until the day when the devil arrives: Mehdi, sentenced to 15 years in prison during the robbery, comes to recover his share of the cake.
Florence, a lawyer overwhelmed by her family life, decides to buy a humanoid robot with a perfect physique. The robot meets all her expectations: maintain the house, take care of the children, and more... By maliciously disrupting their daily routine, the robot also arouses the jealousy of her self-centered careless husband, Franck, a second-class actor who suddenly realizes he must make some efforts not to lose the love of his wife.
The sequel of Lady Bar follows Jean and Pat opening a match-making resort on a beautiful Thai island while Jean's friend Polo finds himself soul-searching in a buddhist monastry.
Also Directed by Yves Angelo
A magistrate investigating a fraud case discovers the woman is the biological mother of her adopted child. Instead of recusing herself, the magistrate pursues the case further.
In the midst of WW I, a doctor and a lawyer team up to turn a ramshackle old mountain chateau into a sanatorium/health spa that caters to the afflicted from most every stratum of European society, most of whom show up with false hope in their hearts and plenty of equally false identities. Even the proprietors have a few deceptions, chief among them is the part of the resort where they provide shelter for dying and horribly maimed soldiers. Still the atmosphere of this high-class convalescent home is that of great gentility that thinly disguises the seaminess of the guests' secret activities. Though much of the film is a quirky comedy, tragedy comes creeping in when people begin dying of unnatural causes, and not even the pure mountain air can save the owners and the residents.
When a disease is spreading over France, a publisher is fleeing to the campaign with his wife...
Three women live together in an old rectory on the seashore. Alda lends her body to a string of carnal relationships but never commits her feelings. Olga, the elder sister, has opted for a reclusive life as the soul of the household. Her daughter, Sigga, is a young adolescent. The house harbors a finely balanced marriage between desire and memory—until Olga’s destiny tips the scales.
A man with a low IQ takes part in a scientific experiment with a mouse.
Colonel Chabert has been severely wounded in the French-Russian Napoleonic war to the point that the medical examiner has signed his death certificate. When he regains his health and memory, he goes back to Paris, where his "widow", Anne has married the Count Ferraud and is financing his rise to power using Chabert's money. Chabert hires a lawyer to help him get back his money and his honor.
Also Directed by Paul Boujenah
A comedy directed by Paul Boujenah.
Also Directed by Yamina Benguigui
THE PERFUMED GARDEN is an exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society, a world of taboos and of erotic literature. Through interviews with men and women of all ages, classes, and sexual orientation, the film lifts a corner of the veil that usually shrouds discussion of this subject in the Arab world. Made by an Algerian-French woman director, the film begins by looking at the record of a more permissive history, and ends with the experiences of contemporary lovers from mixed backgrounds. It examines the personal issues raised by the desire for pleasure, amidst societal pressures for chastity and virginity. The film discusses pre-marital sex, courtship and marriage, familial pressures, private vs. public spaces, social taboos (and the desire to break them), and issues of language.
Rid of her rival Gloria, Aïcha will do everything to make her boss proud, with Ginette's help. Patrick presents her with a love ultimatum: their mothers must meet. And to top it off, things are getting worse in the neighborhood.
The story of an immigrant woman struggling against old world traditions. Zouina leaves her homeland with her three children to join her husband in France, where he's been living for the past ten years. In a land and culture foreign to her, Zouina struggles against her mother-in-law's tyrannical hand and her husband's distrustful bitterness in an attempt to adjust to her life in exile.
Also Directed by Emilie Deleuze
A teen party gone out of control provides the focus of this drama which explores the transitions of youth in a transitional time set in the post-disco, pre-punk, early 1980's. Ariane, a teenager, is rebelling against her father and her boyfriend Pierre. She decides to hold a small party. The party is crashed by a large crowd of rude outsiders who proceed to destroy her home. Afterward, Ariane must face her obsessive neatness.
On the spur of the moment, 30-year old Alain gives up his well-paid job as a tester of computer games, but is uncertain over what do next. He takes up the offer of a place on a course to learn how to operate a bulldozer, although this means spending time away from home. During his training, he is paired up with a child-like younger man, Manu, who is passionate about wanting to drive a bulldozer but has no aptitude for the job. While his marriage starts to fall apart, Alain finds himself becoming more dependent on his relationship with Manu.
In order not to be thrown from his big Parisian apartment by his sister, the idiosyncratic pensioner Joseph takes the 20-year-old farmer's daughter Marilyn with him. She wants to complete an apprenticeship as a make-up artist in the capital, preferably for horror films. An unequal pair, which soon finds attraction as well as rejection.
They’re all nuts. Her parents, who want to send her off to boarding school. Her new teacher, who expects her to read impossibly old books. Her fellow band members, who make her sing ridiculous lyrics and dress her up in a frilly white dress for their first show. Everyone seems to know what she should do and how she should act. And it’s not like 13-year-old Aurore has any fundamental problem with changing herself either. Who would want to be like this: unhappy, ugly and emotionally withdrawn? But the others don’t seem all that much happier to her either. She definitely doesn’t ever want to be as old, rundown and lonely as her mother. And so she prefers to stay the way she is, to observe and make her biting comments on whatever comes her way.
Also Directed by Fanta Régina Nacro
This short film directed by Nacro in 1997 depicts the various myths behind condom use, sexuality, AIDS, polygamy and the theme of change in a Burkinabe village.
In 1997, six African women pledged that in the first year of the new millennium they would tell their stories, stories by African women. They called their series "Mama Africa" and drew their tales from the depths of their hearts. The result is a groundbreaking initiative bringing together the incredibly fresh talents of six female directors from the vast and diverse continent of Africa.
Short directed by Fanta Régina Nacro.
Bintou wants to make sure that her daughter goes to school, but her husband Abel doesn’t think it’s worth it because there is only money enough for the boys’ education. Bintou won’t give up and starts her own business to earn the extra money. But Abel, scared that he is losing control and that Bintou’s newfound financial freedom will lead her to adultery, he tries to sabotage her efforts. Joyfully satirical, Bintou pushes aside the stereotypes of dignified African traditions and tackles sexuality, gender relations, and even the fraught relationship between tradition and modernity, with comic results. Winner Best Short film FESPACO 2001.
La Nuit de la Vérité is situated in an imaginary West African country. After ten years of civil war between the government army of the Nayak, led by 'Le président', and the Bonande rebels led by Colonel Theo, there is some sign of peace negotiations. But not everyone is in favor of peace and one can feel the tension. The night of truth starts with a festive dinner, but the village idiot Tomoto always seems capable of ruining the attempts for peace with violence and provocation.
Short directed by Fanta Régina Nacro.